Reality TV changed the way we view television. Scripted dramas, comedies, and even “reality” game shows have a hero, a heroine, and a villain. The storyline has a beginning, a development, and an end - usually, a happy, or at least successful one. Reality TV, in its latest and greatest evolved version, just highlights the mundane, pointless activities of “normal” people’s lives. Big Brother literally watched people sit on the couch. There was an Animal Planet show that filmed cats “living” in a storefront in NYC. Somehow, someway, reality TV always evolves to be more like scripted drama, as the public comes to expect the stars to behave a certain way. The Hills started out as “reality,” until they got famous and had to start scripting Normal Young Adult Behavior or the American public would stop relating. Delightfully, Jersey Shore seems to be able to avoid this. Their cast members gained almost immediate notoriety, apparently, even during the filming of Season One back in July/August, a rare feat for R-TV. People would see the cameras and yell malicious things towards the cast members, usually involving a barely coherent version of “go back to Jersey!” (Newsflash Haters: Seaside IS in Jersey”. Instead of changing the format to avoid the hooligans, MTV embraced them. The cameras dash after Ronnie like a scene from the Blair Witch Project, usually just missing the crushing blow and only capturing the poor, unconscious loser on the floor of the Boardwalk. The duck phone rings. Ronnie just got in a fight on the Boardwalk! Note: “fight” = 15 seconds of rugby-“snuggle”-style clutching each other with an occasionally misplaced punch. Holy bananas Batman! Pauly D’s shoes are magically already sitting by his feet, tongues depressed, laces untied, ready to slip on at a moment’s notice. The Situation doesn’t appear to bother to put shoes on at all. In a flash, they’re dashing off down the street to get in on the action. Thanks to MTV’s genius marketing execs staring Controversy in the face and inviting it to Sunday tea, all of America watches, riveted, every Thursday night. These people can’t possibly be like this in “real” life. Nobody lives like this!
Thanks to US Weekly and Rolling Stone magazine I can confirm that they are. Yesterday I had lunch with the entire cast. Pauly D actually fist-pumped during his introduction. The moderator never referred to the individuals in the couple, choosing instead an inferior Brangelina-style “RonnieandSammi.” The Situation’s face was lit up like a jack-o-lantern. Snooki gave a live demonstration of how to rock the “pouf.” (In case you haven’t heard, she invented it- not generations of women putting their makeup on) JWoww apparently started a fight in LAX prior to catching the red-eye back to New York. Who fights before a red-eye? Reality TV didn’t change the way we watch television. Reality TV changed the way we define reality.
On the eHarmony login page there’s a quote from “Theresa,” saying “I felt like I tried everything. Bars, clubs, all that stuff. Finding eHarmony felt like a new beginning. Now a real relationship seems possible.” Apparently, this is reality dating. And apparently, it’s real.
Time to take this puppy into the realm of real reality. Bring on the dates!
Reality is real. Pass it on.
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