Wednesday, October 13, 2004

in the company of reality

I had the TV on while cooking, probably either The Simpsons or Seinfeld, and one of the commercials was for an upcoming or possibly just-past reality show where a guy revealed to some woman that he was not in fact whatever she thought he was--a millionaire, landed gentry, a software designer--and that he and the TV producers had been deceiving her for however long they had been deceiving her. Sound familiar? It reminded me exactly of the revelation in In the Company of Men (probably the only time I've heard actual gasps from a movie audience). I don't know if this means reality show audiences would think the In the Company of Men men are actually just OK Joes since that's more or less the premise they've learned to love as entertainment. While I'd like to say that it exposes the gossipy cruelty of reality shows as the reason I don't watch them, the reason is actually much simpler: they're boring. Oh, perhaps if I took some faux-Cagean approach and sat down with hours of Survivor I'd learn to move past that boredom but then again why bother? Maybe if there were verite-styled shows following, say, a rancher or a Congressional aide or a philosophy professor or an airline pilot for a few weeks then I'd watch. Maybe when serious narrowcasting becomes a reality.....