On The Couch with C.T.
Ever since the writers guild went on strike, I’ve been getting comments taking me to task for writing about reality TV in my Channel Surfing pieces, suggesting that I should be eschewing the genre in support of the folks who are marching on the picket lines. But that ain’t about to happen, and I’m gonna tell you why.
To borrow a phrase from one of my favorite shows, the facts are these: I was watching — and writing about — reality television long before the strike began, and I will continue to do so long after the strike is over. Why? Simply put, reality is a fact of modern TV life and has been for longer than most people realize. Way before MTV offered us a peek into THE REAL WORLD — referred to by man as the grandpa of reality shows — back in 1992, PBS delved into the lives of a dysfunctional family who let it all hang out before the cameras for their groundbreaking series AN AMERICAN FAMILY. I can’t help wondering if the producers of that famous series would have pulled the plug had they known it would lay the groundwork which eventually would result in slightly less high-minded programming as THE ANNA NICOLE SHOW or FEAR FACTOR.
Whether the strike ends tomorrow or two years from now, reality will continue to have its place on the cultural landscape that is television programming. Might there be more of it in the months to come thanks to the strike? That seems almost certain. But I’m not sure that this is necessarily a bad thing for the striking writers. After all, they have decried the genre for years, swearing that it eventually will be the death of scripted fare. And while that hasn’t proven to be the case, perhaps an endless glut of AMERICA’S NEXT TOP FILL-IN-THE-BLANK or TOP SOMETHING-OR-OTHERS will finally do what the writers have long hoped and quench the country’s thirst to see unemployed (or unemployable) wanna-be actors pretend to be people just like you and me in order to compete for their promised 15 minutes of fame.
