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Wednesday, July 13, 2005
Next week Ben discovers that people
laugh at him and not with him
The naif gets an earful:
The irony of the situation is that reality television is a hoax. It's no more real than "The O.C." or "Law and Order," and it's considerably more deceptive. It's also much more profitable. I recently spoke with Dave Bell, president of Dave Bell Associates; Bell is a veteran documentary filmmaker and a pioneer in reality television. His company produced the first "Unsolved Mysteries" specials, among other reality projects. He describes reality TV programming as "the most unreal situation for something called 'reality' that anyone could imagine." According to Bell, "most reality TV is for the most part scripted but not under the jurisdiction of the Writer's Guild, and acted, though not under the jurisdiction of Screen Actor's Guild, and directed, though not under the jurisdiction of the Director's Guild of America. A lot of the people who appear in reality TV shows are actors or wannabe actors or wannabe celebrities at least."
As my great grandmother used to say, "Get the fuck out of here!" It's not real? These shows are somehow manipulated by producers? The participants are wannabe celebrities? They're Guild-less? Suddenly my whole world has tilted...perspectives are changing...I don't know who I am anymore...Maggie Gallagher is starting to seem kinda hot...
Whoa. That was a jolt of icy water. I'm back now.
Let's check back with Ben:
And we can't just shrug off all of this deviancy as science fiction -- it's reality! These are real people, in real situations. After all, aren't we watching reality TV? That's the gimmick of "reality" television: We can't turn it off, because it's real . As long as we're going to live in the real world, we might as well watch "Reality's Greatest Hits" on Sundance instead of sitting through a lifetime of real world experience and possibly missing some of what real life has to offer.
You know, like meeting a girl, going out on a date, maybe holding her hand, that soft brush of a kiss on the cheek and then.....going back to your dormroom and furiously masturbating to hotnakednubiledrunkensluttysluttybigbreastedcoeds.com.
At least that's what I hear the abstinent kids are calling "dating" these days...
Those crazy mixed-up kids.
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