by Phillip WU
Reality TV:What does it say about us?
I remember hearing about great sports stars that changed the world. How the Babe brought people together and how Ali rocked the world over. I heard about great leaders like Ghandi and Kennedy. And now slowly one by one they have stolen our heroes away.
It started with our athletes, they torn them apart, they dropped their value because they drank, or used drugs. They threw them in court and suddenly they could only be in the spotlight if they were doing something wrong.
Then they went for the politicians. They tried to impeach Clinton because of personal things, they dug up stuff on Ghandi and Kennedy. In fact everyone runs scared from reporters because instead of building the characters of great people they find ways to tear them apart.
What does this have to do with reality TV, well that is the last place where we had heroes. For a while they existed in our imaginations, from Superman to the Duke Brothers, we wanted to live our dreams through the characters. Then they killed Superman and sitcoms took over. When the sitcoms went away we were given shows like Law and Order and ER. These shows brought us the belief that we were witnessing the characters lives up close. The person instead of just the character.
Then came the Real World and everything changed. Now we were instant witnesses to the personal lives of complete strangers. We made comments and felt godlike watching them lie and make mistakes. But here is where everything took a turn for the worst.
Fox decided to let us, the public, actually excericse godlike power. We now were choosing who marries who and who gets to have their dreams come true or have them crushed.
Which brings me to Joe. Joe Millionaire, Avergae Joe and Adam. These three concepts have become the chance for all men to achieve their dreams. We as average everyday men now watch as one of us takes the chance and sets out to become what we want to be. We are enamored by the concept. We feel that we could be the guy or we feel that we could make fun of these guys because they are more average than us.
Here is a wake up call. We are now moved and addicted to watching the lives of people we believe are worse off than us. We have now moved form watching heroes because we adore them to watching people because we are better than them. Reality TV has given the American Public the false sense that they are the best because they are better than the people on TV.