Saturday, November 21, 2009

Reality and false perceptions of reality.

*Disclaimer: The following blog entry is overflowing with cynicism and pessimism*

Every night, the people of this great continent sit down after a long day at work, shut their brains off, and become of a slave to prime time television.
For the vast majority (and I’m talking 99%) of the viewers of reality television are your ‘average Joes’ (meaning, people who aren’t living off of a six figure income). You have all of these shows like the Bachelor(ette), American (Canadian) Idol, America’s Got Talent, et cetera. They paint a false picture of reality, and are dumbing down our population one brain cell at a time.
The Bachelor for example: We’ve got twelve girls competing for one guy, every date is a date of a lifetime (horseback riding in Montana, a sail boat ride in the Dominican Republic, spending an entire season in an over the top luxurious home, living on an island fit for only the richest of the rich. Of course, that is going to make a human overwhelmed with ‘feel good’ sensations, combined with competitiveness, a bit of wine, and you’ve got twelve girls thinking that they’re in love, when really, they aren’t in love (but of course, there are two cases which would prove me wrong, but they’re what...Two seasons out of twenty?). You get to escape from your day to day job, just to watch a bunch of spoiled girls with nothing to offer try and win this man’s heart...Now THAT’S something I want to escape to. Then again, I enjoy escaping through music, books, art, all that good stuff. Maybe that’s why I’m so one sided. Who knows?

Now we’ve got documentaries, which (often) paint a very real picture of reality...Probably because it IS real. For example, the Man Dancing Ballroom movie, or whatever it was called, we’ve got elementary kids competing in a tournament, and it shows their journey through it all. Even though I dislike the movie, I very much liked that fact that the program was able to offer something to the poorer Dominican students. Over 80% of their students are living in poverty, with no chance of any out of school programs. The program gave them something constructive and healthy to apply themselves to, and it paid off. It really, really paid off. Now that’s reality I’d enjoy watching.
So in a simplified nutshell...Reality television = False reality
Documentaries = reality
...That's about all I have to say about that.

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