“We’ve become a race of Peeping Toms. What people oughta do is get outside their own house and look in for a change,” Alfred Hitchcock. Hitchcock hit that nail on the head with this quote. America is rapidly becoming so involved with the staged lives of others; we are letting our own lives slip through our fingertips. Voyeurism is becoming a trend in America and with reality television there is a plethora of exhibitionists waiting for their turn to be ogled. If this trend does not stop, reality tv will bleed over and we will no longer be able to depict between engineered realism and reality.
Who was the last person to win American Idol? Who was the Biggest Loser last season? Who won the job on the Apprentice season 1? Who is your mayor and what is his/her stance on education? I didn’t mean to throw a curveball at you with the last one but the point is hammered home. America has become obsessed with the lives of the “rich” and the “famous.” But, in order to become rich and famous in our society it has become accepting and almost necessary to be devious. It is a good thing to take your top off for a camera. It is a very good thing to backstab, manipulate and break hearts. It is a wonderful thing if you do all of these things in one episode. Our society is making these people famous for doing nothing, but doing it where everyone can watch. When faced with the choice between watching reality TV or watching the news I have personally witnessed the endless search for the remote to turn off the reality of life. I have watched people alter their own lives to watch someone else’s. What does this say for our society?
If Americans are sufficed to watch someone else work out while listening for their extra butter popcorn to be finished, what will be coming next? We pin people up against each other for sport and entertainment. We are the Romans who gladly watched the Gladiators take on lions and tigers with nothing but a shield and sword to defend themselves. The only difference now is that the Colleseum is our living room, and the lions and tigers are morality.
Reality television is just part of the beginning to an end of civilization. For instance, Survivor is a show whose goal is to be the only one left. A show so sordid that the individuals who are voted off after sharing it all wind up on our talk shows as if they have anything left to offer America. We do not condemn these people who have back stabbed their way to the top but celebrate them with their fifteen minutes of fame. Instead of the goal to be working together, the object is to tear each other to pieces. With that being said what sets us apart from the lions?
If shows now are based on watching human beings stab each other in the back, where will that stop? If we are willing to watch this, I can only imagine the next big thing will be watching human beings stab each other literally. There are already videos out entitled Faces of Death. This is a series where you can watch the life leave bodies of other human beings. Though some of the “human death” scenes are staged, some of the footage is actually genuine. They also include some famous scenes of death captured by the media. Also featured are the actual on-camera deaths of a variety of animals, including seals being clubbed to death and animals being killed on the slaughterhouse line. Granted it has not yet been picked up by NBC, the possibilities are endless. We watch other people cooking, fighting, cleaning and screwing, why wouldn’t we want to watch someone dying?
I’ll set the scene for you. The theme music kicks on, you sit with your popcorn and beer as your family gathers around the couch. It’s a death metal band singing about how great it must feel to die. The lyrics consist of the words thrash, crack and crumble as these are evidence of your life start to finish. You kick around trying to gain some ground, eventually crack and then crumble for the camera and one million eyes to see. Next you see a black screen and the voice over kicks on. “America, tonight we have three interesting stories, each more deadly then the first.” Anxiously we await the footage to start. When we watch we tell ourselves to look away but our eyes maintain their position fixed upon the screen waiting for that first man to jump onto the pavement from ten stories above. Splat! We all cheer because we got to witness it and kiss each other good night and go to sleep.
I know this sounds extreme but the fact is we will stop at nothing to be entertained. The shelf life of these shows is purely dependent on our interest. When Americans stop paying attention they go away and a new breed arises. As long as exhibitionists are willing to expose themselves, America will turn their voyeuristic eyes in their direction.
