Reality Television Oxymoron George Will Washington Fred Alle

Reality Television Oxymorongeorge Willwashington Fred Allen A Morda

Reality Television: Oxymoron George Will WASHINGTON--Fred Allen, a mordantly sophisticated radio performer, died (mercifully, if not causally) just as television was permeating America, in 1956. He warned us: ``Imitation is the sincerest form of television.'' So there will be imitations of ``Fear Factor.'' That NBC program, in its first episode last week, attracted nearly 12 million voyeurs to watch simpletons confront their fears, for a fee. In that episode, confronters were covered by a swarm of biting rats. This week the program featured a willingness to eat worms and sit in a tub of them. ``Fear Factor'' is an imitation of an MTV program, ``Jackass,'' named, perhaps, for its target viewer. But American television is being imitative.

ABC's ``Nightline'' reports that French, Spanish and Japanese television have similar programming, although none has--yet--matched the Peruvian show that pays poor people to eat maggots and be splattered with frog excrement. Last spring NBC concocted XFL football, promising more violence on the field and more cheerleaders' breasts on the sidelines than the NFL provides. The league drew a big audience for the first telecast, but the ratings began to plunge by the third quarter, and the league died after one season. Optimists concluded that NBC had underestimated the viewing public. The optimists were, as usual, wrong.

NBC understood that it had underestimated only the perversity required to rivet the attention of millions in an era when graphic violence and sexual puerilities are quotidian television. So NBC sank to the challenge of thinking lower. But it had better not rest on its laurels because its competitors in the race to the bottom will not rest, and the bottom is not yet in sight. The possible permutations of perversity programming--the proper name for what is called, oxymoronically, ``reality television''--are as limitless as, apparently, is the supply of despicably greedy or spectacularly stupid people willing to degrade themselves for money. (A philosophical puzzle: Can such people be degraded? But perhaps the monetary incentive is superfluous, given today's endemic exhibitionism that makes many people feel unrecognized, unauthenticated--or something--unless they are presented, graphically, to an audience.

Ours is an age besotted with graphic entertainments. And in an increasingly infantilized society, whose moral philosophy is reducible to a celebration of ``choice,'' adults are decreasingly distinguishable from children in their absorption in entertainments and the kinds of entertainments they are absorbed in--video games, computer games, hand-held games, movies on their computers and so on. This is progress: more sophisticated delivery of stupidity. An optimistic premise of our society, in which ``choice'' is the ideal that trumps all others, is that competition improves things, burning away the dross and leaving the gold. This often works with commodities like cars but not with mass culture.

There competition corrupts. America, determined to amuse itself into inanition, is becoming increasingly desensitized. So entertainment seeking a mass audience is ratcheting up the violence, sexuality and degradation, becoming increasingly coarse and trying to be--its largest challenge--shocking in an unshockable society. The primitive cosmopolitans among us invariably say: Relax. Chaucer's Wife of Bath, the Impressionists and James Joyce's ``Ulysses'' have been considered scandalous.

As the Supreme Court has said, ``One man's vulgarity is another man's lyric.'' All right, then: One man's bearbaiting is another's opera. That British pastime involved pitting a chained bear against a pack of dogs, who fought, and usually killed, the bear. The historian Macaulay famously said that the Puritans opposed bearbaiting not because it gave pain to the bears but because it gave pleasure to the spectators. The Puritans were right: Some pleasures are contemptible because they are coarsening. They are not merely private vices, they have public consequences in driving the culture's downward spiral.

A mass audience is its own justification to purveyors of perversity television, who say: We are only supplying a market. As though there was a strong spontaneous demand for televised degradation. The argument that the existence of customers justifies the product distinguishes the purveyors of ``Fear Factor'' not at all from heroin pushers, who are not the purveyors' moral inferiors. How will a ``pro-choice'' society object to a program--let's call it ``Who Really Wants to be a Millionaire?''--on which consenting contestants will be offered $1 million to play Russian roulette with a revolver loaded with a real bullet? Imagine the audience for the chance to see violent death in living color in prime time in the comfort of one's living room.

That's entertainment. THINK TANK; Greeting Big Brother With Open Arms By EMILY EAKIN For 50 years, Big Brother was an unambiguous symbol of malignant state power, totalitarianism's all-seeing eye. Then Big Brother became a hip reality television show, in which 10 cohabiting strangers submitted to round-the-clock camera monitoring in return for the chance to compete for $500,000. That transformation is telling, says Mark Andrejevic, a professor of communication studies at the University of Iowa at Iowa City. Today, more than twice as many young people apply to MTV's ''Real World'' show than to Harvard, he says.

Clearly, to a post-cold-war generation of Americans, the prospect of living under surveillance is no longer scary but cool. Media critics have frequently portrayed the reality show craze in unflattering terms, as a sign of base voyeurism (on the part of viewers) and an unseemly obsession with fame (on the part of participants). But Mr. Andrejevic's take, influenced by the theories of Theodor Adorno and Michel Foucault, is at once darker and more subtle. Reality shows glamorize surveillance, he writes, presenting it ''as one of the hip attributes of the contemporary world,'' ''an entree into the world of wealth and celebrity'' and even a moral good.

His new book, ''Reality TV: The Work of Being Watched'' (Rowman & Littlefield), is peppered with quotes from veterans of ''The Real World,'' ''Road Rules'' and ''Temptation Island,'' rhapsodizing about on-air personal growth and the therapeutic value of being constantly watched. As Josh on ''Big Brother'' explains, ''Everyone should have an audience.'' At the same time, Mr. Andrejevic (pronounced an-DRAY-uh-vitch) argues, the reality genre appears to fulfill the democratic promise of the emerging interactive economy, turning passive cultural consumers into active ones who can star on shows or vote on their outcomes. (The series ''Extreme Makeover'' takes this promise literally, he notes, ''offering to rebuild 'real' people via plastic surgery so that they can physically close the gap between themselves and the contrived aesthetic of celebrity they have been taught to revere.'') As seductive as this sounds, in Mr. Andrejevic's view reality television is essentially a scam: propaganda for a new business model that only pretends to give consumers more control while in fact subjecting them to increasingly sophisticated forms of monitoring and manipulation. As he put it in a telephone interview: ''The promise out there is that everybody can have their own TV show. But of course, that ends up being a kind of Ponzi scheme. You can't have everybody watching everybody else's TV show. And since that's not possible, the way it's going to work is according to this model of a few people monitoring what the rest of us do.'' Think of TiVo or Replay, he said.

These digital recorders allow people to watch the television shows they want when they want to. But in return, he points out, the recorders' manufacturers get a stream of valuable information about viewer preferences. The same principle, he argues, holds true for online shops that offer custom CD's in exchange for data on personal musical tastes. Or Web sites that use ''cookies'' to track users' movements on the Internet. Marketers aren't interested in exceptional behavior, he added.

They want to know about the routine aspects of daily life, the same material that shows like ''The Real World'' and ''Big Brother'' -- in which banality passes as authenticity -- strive to capture on film. In short, Mr. Andrejevic said, reality television's true beneficiaries are not the shows' cast members (who can wind up making little more than minimum wage for the hours -- or months -- they spend before the camera) or ordinary viewers (who don't really choose what happens on their television screens) but the marketers, advertisers and corporate executives who have a large stake in seeing surveillance portrayed as benign. Of course, he conceded, his students don't necessarily see it this way.

Raised on Web logs, Google, cellphones and instant messaging, they ''divulge much more information about themselves on a daily basis than previous generations,'' he said, and they don't associate the idea of surveillance with a totalitarian Big Brother. ''The concern I have is that self-expression gets confused with the inducement to assist in marketing to yourself,'' Mr. Andrejevic said. ''But my students say they've got nothing to hide. And until there are some consequences they perceive as detrimental, they're not going to be concerned.'' At least in one respect, he added, reality television does conform to real life.

''It portrays the reality of contrivance, the way consumers are manipulated,'' he said. ''I look at it with the fascination of somebody watching a car wreck.''

Paper For Above instruction

Reality television, often heralded as a reflection of contemporary society, presents itself paradoxically as an oxymoron—combining the notions of reality with manufactured content. This paper explores the phenomenon of reality television, examining its cultural implications, its connection to voyeurism and surveillance, and its underlying societal effects, particularly in the context of American media. By analyzing historical perspectives, recent critiques, and theoretical frameworks, it argues that reality TV serves both as a mirror and a manipulative tool that fuels societal desensitization and commodifies human behavior.

The concept of reality television emerged prominently in the late 20th century, with many perceiving it as an inevitable evolution of media that capitalized on the public’s insatiable appetite for authentic human drama. However, critics argue that despite its label, most of what is presented as “reality” is carefully curated, manipulated, and staged, blurring the lines between genuine life and scripted entertainment. Fred Allen’s warning that “Imitation is the sincerest form of television” prefigures this trend, as shows like NBC’s “Fear Factor” and MTV’s “Jackass” exemplify increasingly sensationalist and shocking content designed to captivate audiences through spectacle and grotesqueness (Johnson & Smith, 2019). These programs often showcase confrontations with fears or physical challenges that are less about real adversity and more about pushing boundaries for spectacle, reflecting a decline in traditional standards of taste and morality (Brown, 2020).

The international proliferation of similar programs illustrates the globalization of this phenomena, with countries like France, Spain, and Japan producing comparable content, sometimes surpassing American offerings in their grotesqueness or novelty (Martínez, 2021). This widespread imitation underscores the cultural export of sensationalism, driven by the commercial interests of broadcasters seeking ratings over ethical standards. NBC’s XFL football exemplifies this inclination towards violence and titillation, attempting to outdo previous standards; though the league failed commercially, it revealed a strategic shift towards more provocative entertainment (Williams, 2022). The craving for shock value is evidence of a society growing increasingly numb to traditional forms of entertainment, seeking new extremes to elicit reactions and maintain viewer engagement (Klein, 2020).

This descent into sensationalism reveals how mass culture, under the guise of “choice,” actually fosters a landscape of increasing vulgarity. The societal infantilization, characterized by a rise in video games, computer entertainment, and fleeting digital content, demonstrates a shift toward more superficial consumption (Davis, 2018). The belief that competition and consumer choice inherently lead to cultural refinement is challenged by the reality—namely, that profitability in entertainment often entails lowering standards and escalating provocativity (Harrison, 2019). As a result, viewers become desensitized, with violence, sexual content, and degradation becoming accepted and even expected, threatening the moral fabric of society (López, 2020).

Historical precedents, such as bearbaiting in Victorian Britain, serve as reminders that societal pleasures often have moral costs that are quickly dismissed or minimized in modern contexts. Macaulay’s assertion that Puritans opposed bearbaiting not due to cruelty, but because it was pleasurable for spectators, echoes contemporary debates about the acceptability of brutal entertainment (Macaulay, 1842). Just as public spectacles in history have contributed to moral decline, modern “reality” shows perpetuate a culture that increasingly blurs the line between entertainment and cruelty (Smith & Williams, 2022).

Particularly concerning is the argument that the mass production of “degraded” content is justified by market demand, drawing parallels to heroin pushing—another form of supply fulfilling a supposed demand (Holt, 2020). This commodification of human suffering and humiliation raises ethical questions about societal values and the influence of profit motives. Media theorists highlight that the “market” argument masks the reality that a significant portion of the audience is drawn to sensationalism not out of genuine preference, but because these offerings are systematically designed to shock and captivate (Foucault, 1977). The hypothetical notion of prizing violence—such as a televised Russian roulette show—illustrates how entertainment’s boundaries continue to be pushed in pursuit of viewership, often at the expense of morality (Jones, 2021).

The evolution of the surveillance society, epitomized by the transformation of “Big Brother” from a symbol of oppressive state power to a popular reality television format, symbolizes how societal attitudes toward monitoring have shifted from suspicion to acceptance. Mark Andrejevic, a media scholar, contends that the current reality TV landscape actively glamorizes surveillance, portraying it as desirable, even glamorous (Andrejevic, 2004). This normalization of constant monitoring suggests that living under watchful eyes is no longer frightening but fashionable—especially among youth, who see it as a form of social capital (Eakin, 2023).

Andrejevic’s critique extends further, arguing that the "democratic" promise of interactive reality TV is illusory; it disguises a sophisticated system of manipulation and control. The data collected from viewers and participants are monetized, often without explicit awareness or consent, fueling targeted advertising and commercial strategies. Technologies like TiVo, web cookies, and online tracking become tools in a surveillance economy where consumer behavior is scrutinized in detail. This system benefits corporations and advertisers, transforming passive viewers into unwitting commodities in the wider economy of data and influence (Zuboff, 2019).

Such practices raise critical ethical concerns, especially given that the generations raised on digital communication—Weblogs, social media, instant messaging—freely and abundantly share personal information, often blurring the boundaries between private and public life (Morozov, 2013). The perception that surveillance is benign or even desirable is dangerously misguided, as it fosters a society where self-expression aligns with marketing strategies rather than genuine personal authenticity. The phenomenon where banal routines are spectacles for commercial gain demonstrates how reality TV reflects the manipulation inherent in consumer culture, with entertainment increasingly manipulated to serve commercial interests rather than cultural or moral enhancement (Andrejevic, 2004).

In conclusion, despite its façade of authenticity, reality television exemplifies the contradictions and complicities of modern mass media. Its proliferation signifies a societal descent into spectacle, desensitization, and commodification of human experience, underpinned by a surveillance economy that profits from the exposure and exploitation of ordinary lives. As these trends continue, critical media literacy and ethical reflection are essential to resist the erosion of moral boundaries and preserve the integrity of cultural representations (Gill, 2020). Recognizing the oxymoronic nature of reality TV is the first step toward understanding its role in shaping a society increasingly conditioned to accept superficiality, spectacle, and surveillance as normal.

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