The Value of Reality Shows

Their names are everywhere, on billboards, on the sides of buses, whispered over coffee clutches at Starbucks, and perhaps most importantly at the top of all the rating and revenue charts: American Idol, Survivor, The Bachelor, etc. These titles draw sneers and disrespect from the artistic community. The actors, producers, directors, and writers who make their living and find their joy in creating story based film and television, look down their collective noses at these types of shows. Write them off as a, “phase” and keep champagne chilled ready to pop the day the bottom drops out of their viewing market. A word to the wise: Stock up on ice … it may be a while.

As sad as it is that jobs are being lost in the creative community to these shows that can be produced for so little and draw so many eyeballs, it may be even sadder still that the story based community, (caught up in a orgy of self congratulatory dismissal) is missing the point. We should use the extra time we have on our hands waiting for the phone to ring to use our practiced pen and whip off a letter of, “Thank You” to the producers of these shows for raising the creative bar for all of us. Those who suggest that Reality Based, (What the hell does that mean?) Programming is throwing us backwards into some media Stone Age has got it all wrong. In fact, the opposite is true. Funny how we tend to think of our audience as evolved and enlightened when they tune in to our product but write the very same demographic off as simple voyeurs when they migrate into the Reality Based camp. The reality, (no not “based”, just straight-up reality, no mixer) is that our audience is, was, and always will be pretty damn sharp. But more important than their intellectual acuity, they are, have been, and will continue to be, human. To be a storyteller is to be a student of the human condition. We do our job when we entertain and inform, and importantly so, we do those things in that order. Nobody give ‘a damn what you have to say no mater how high minded or noble unless they are being entertained. And if we want to get peoples attention, if we want to inform and reflect them, we have to meet certain basic human needs. And there is very little as important to us humans as authenticity.

That’s the Golden Key that Reality Based has slipped in the lock that all the rest of us dinosaurs are missing. Don’t write off Survivor, sit down, whip out your pen, and start taking notes. Without authenticity there can be no real intimacy and without intimacy people cannot connect and when people don’t connect they get divorced, move to a new state, or change the channel. One thing is for sure; the sense that someone is true, that they act with their own authority, that they are authentic reads as clear as a bell. When we see an authentic experience on someone’s face we are drawn to it like a moth to a flame. As ridiculous as it is when Fox fools some batch of silly greedy gals into thinking Bright Boy is a millionaire, the shock and embarrassment on their faces is USDA Prime authentic when they find out in fact he’s a roofer from Terrace. The audience will put up with all kinds of assaults on their reason and moral compasses when they are given a peek at authentic experience.    ’

In truth, Reality Based Programming has sharpened the viewing publics eye for honesty in behavior. As Story Based craftspeople we have the opportunity now to redouble our efforts to tell stories that cut deeper to the heart of the matter. As writers we must look circumstances and metaphor that are honest and clear. Like the work of Alan Ball, we have to look deeper into the private lives and personal needs of our characters. As directors and producers we must find new technique and sharper focus to deliver the product to a far more discerning public. They’ll let you slide on production design here and there, but they’ll string you up if you look them in the eye and lie. And actors, maybe vote important than all the others, have to seek out new and innovative ways of analysis arc, kind execution in their craft. American Idol has trained our audiences to tie on the look out for phonies. The actors mainstay, a profound understanding of self and others, has never been more important. The reason, when you look at typical television acting of twenty or thirty years ago it seems far more stagey and far less honest than the typical work today, isn’t because the actors took a vote and decided to improve, it’s because the audience learned more and demanded more. If the actor doesn’t focus like a laser beam on the need for authentic experience in their work, they’re not going to be able to put food on the table. The idea that the arts and commerce don’t mix is horseshit. What’s happening now is a perfect example of how market forces will improve the arts much faster and more effectively then they would if we all sat around and willed it so.

Don’t waste another second demeaning Reality Based Programming. Study it, probe it, and see what lessons it brings. Let’s take the art and craft of story telling in all its disciplines up to a whole new level.

This entry was posted on April 2, 2007 at 11:20 am and is filed under Essay. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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