Reality TV: Guilty pleasure or window to our souls?
9/22/2003 News media contact: Tim Tanton · (615) 742-5470 · Nashville, Tenn.
Sidebars - stories #448-450 - and art are available with this report.
A UMNS-UMC.org Report
By Ray Waddle*
Reality
TV has been called everything from a "modern-day freak show" to a
"guilty pleasure," but observers say it also offers insights into human
nature. The success of “Survivor,” “Real World,” “Joe Millionaire” and
others has made reality TV a defining media genre of the 21st century. A
UMNS graphic by Drew White. Photo number 03-299, Accompanies UMNS #447,
9/22/03.
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It's been called the crack cocaine of television,
cheap to produce and addictive to watch. Reality TV - is it really a bad
thing?
It seems to be taking over. The new TV season this fall
will feature another wave of new reality shows. Already, prime time is
buzzing with a dozen programs loosely termed "reality TV," a tag that
describes unscripted situations involving non-actors in predicaments
that require charm or shrewdness to succeed, usually for love or money.
The
success of "Survivor," "Real World," "Joe Millionaire" and others has
made reality TV a defining media genre of the 21st century. For better
or worse, it's here to stay. Whether they tune in or not, people of
faith ought to pay attention to what the church might learn from it all,
according to observers who monitor the frontier between pop culture and
spiritual life.
"Yes, they're a guilty pleasure," says Robert
Thompson, a professor of popular culture at United Methodist-related
Syracuse (N.Y.) University.
"Clearly, a lot of these programs
reflect the less noble aspects of the human spirit. Yet there are things
to be learned about human nature and the human spirit on some of these
shows."
Take "Temptation Island," for instance - the reality show
on which committed couples test their relationships by meeting
good-looking unattached singles. It sounds like a bad idea, Thompson
says, yet the show turns out to be a modern version of an ancient moral
tale, he says.
"If you sit down and watch, you see it's a
retelling of themes from Genesis or Faust: If you mess around with
temptation, it's a bad thing. In the end, it's a very traditional
message," he says.
Detractors are not hard to find. Even some
Hollywood industry insiders have lashed out against reality TV, calling
it shameless, undignified, an insult to viewer intelligence even as it
rakes in massive ratings and profits for the networks. Reality TV,
critics say, reinforces gender stereotypes, glorifies cutthroat behavior
and deceives viewers into thinking these highly edited shows are raw,
unfiltered reality.
"It's hard to get honest-to-goodness real
human interaction when you know the cameras are rolling," says Ed
Vitagliano of the American Family Association in Tupelo, Miss.
"It's
a modern-day freak show," he says. "Viewers sit back and watch people
make fools of themselves. We all like to rubberneck at the scene of an
accident. That's what these shows are like. But to waste our time this
way shows just how bored we really are. It's awful to see how much time
is being vacuumed out of our lives."
Some 40 million viewers saw
the climactic episode of "Joe Millionaire" earlier this year. Reality TV
is, for now, part of the cultural landscape and daily office chat.
Reality dating shows, like "Blind Date" or "Anything for Love,"
emotionally connect with audiences. It's not difficult to see why,
Thompson says.
"The greatest story in one's life is the search
for that significant other," he says. "But we're used to seeing utopian
versions in movies or on TV - stylized versions. On reality TV, what
we're seeing is courtship, warts and all. Some of these shows are
incredibly stupid, but the American dating jungle is incredibly stupid."
One
culture watcher says the religious critics should try to understand
reality TV's clues to spiritual life today, instead of making easy
condemnations.
"Reality TV is reinventing TV," says the Rev. Leonard Sweet, a United Methodist author and futurist.
"It's
a reflection of a larger cultural shift taking place. It's relationship
TV. This is a relationship culture, an interactive culture. People want
to learn how to do relationships, and the pathetic thing is the
churches aren't teaching them, so they turn to TV."
Sweet says
the culture is moving in what he calls an "EPIC" direction, referring to
the need for experience, participation, image-richness and connection.
Increasingly,
people expect interactivity at work and play. With TV, they want to
shape what they are watching and give input, not merely accept a
packaged program, Sweet says. Traditional TV is based on an old consumer
model: It's produced by professional actors and scriptwriters, with
viewers expected to consume it like any other commodity.
"Reality
TV's energy is here to stay," Sweet says. "There may be a lot of
failures, but it's moving TV into an interactive medium. There were 100
million votes cast for 'American Idol.' It's a karaoke culture. We watch
these shows because we think, 'It could have been me.' "
There
are parallels with the Christian message, he says. The old consumer
model shaped the gospel message into a series of propositions to be
swallowed, not experienced.
"The church has made truth into a
proposition and not a relationship," Sweet says. "The modern world made
Jesus the answer, a solution. No, he is the truth, the way and the life,
a mystery to be lived. What people want is not so much to 'believe' in
God but to experience God. The church has to come to terms with this.
Instead of talking about a singles ministry why not have a relationship
ministry? Why not make worship more EPIC?"
Another media watcher
says church groups might use the reality trend on TV to launch a
discussion about the real world of community ills and solutions.
"I'd
use reality TV as a jumping-off point to ask what's real in our
neighborhood, what's real in our lives and our society," says Elizabeth
Thoman, head of the Center for Media Literacy, based in Los Angeles.
The
Center for Media Literacy promotes media education, aiming to help
people demystify the power of the media by teaching them to look
critically at the media's aims, values and business pressures. That
includes reality TV.
"You can condemn it or empower people to
understand it," she says. "There's no point in condemning it. You don't
change media, you change the climate in which media operate, then media
will change. Social change happens far more powerfully when you change
the viewer."
# # #
*Waddle, former religion editor at The
Tennessean newspaper, is a writer and columnist in Nashville. He is the
author of A Turbulent Peace: The Psalms for Our Time, which will be
published by Upper Room Books at the end of this year.