Reality TV

I'm fascinated by reality TV. Birthed by MTV's "The Real World", this avenue of entertainment is truly a key cultural component to our current world.

My fascination begins with the name "reality TV". It's a paradox. There's no possible way that can even be close to being true. It's like "jumbo shrimp" or "country music". It's just not possible for the two to go together. The second you put a camera in front of someone, they cease being themselves. I think the reason for this is because our relationships define who we are and how we behave. None of us can be truly defined in a relational vacuum. The problem with a camera, especially in the realm of television, is that the person behind the camera is unknown. Therefore, we cannot be truly defined or truly define relationally.

I think reality TV is great entertainment. I'm secure enough in myself to say that I dig American Idol and The Apprentice. But honestly, it can't be reality. There's casting calls, producers, artificial environments, editing and terrible acting.

My biggest problem with reality TV is this (I made this term up myself): surrogate virtues. Americans love reality TV because it is ordinary people living what they view to be an extraordinary experience and they are more than pleased to allow those people on the screen to feel the things they were meant to feel.

For example, take Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. A small group of beautiful people with unlimited resources (place Sears product label here) take a pathetic situation and make it all better with a bunch of material possessions. It looks and feels so right, so much like justice. And the network execs are exploiting those peoples' pain all the way to the bank. This show is not about helping people, it's about ratings and advertising. The moment it stops getting ratings, it will be off the air.

But we love it. We surrogately experience love, hope, peace, revenge, justice, connection, romance, and a host of other emotions and virtues. But especially love and hope. In the back of our minds is the thought, "Maybe one day something like that will happen to me. Maybe one day I will be extraordinary."

The hole that is created in our hearts by lack of these things is a hole that only Jesus was made to fulfill. But we willingly extract the seed of hope or love from our souls, place it in vitro into the womb of network television, and what is birthed is hopelessness. Because the bottom line is this: you're not going to be on TV, and if you do get on TV, it's not going to make you happy. You're not going to win the lottery, and if you do, it's not going to buy you what you are missing. Getting my house remodeled for free will not answer my kids' questions about why they have CF. Living in a sweet spread in a remote location with six other strangers for three months and then riding that "celebrity" for another ten years will not answer your deepest, darkest questions.

Reality TV connects with me because I love watching people achieve their dreams. I can definitely do without the drama, but watching underdogs overcome is great (I guess that's why I like Idol and Apprentice). But in reality -- real reality -- reality TV fails to answer this question: What does it profit someone if they gain the whole world but lose their own soul?

The answer to that question is as real as reality gets.