No one needs me to tell them that reality programming has changed over the last several years. The most obvious example is that we have gone from programs that were mainly to be used as investigative lenses into the lives of young people, ala “The Real World” to a show like “The Apprentice” where successful individuals essentially undergo a 15-week interview to land a job with Donald Trump. We’ve gone from Eric Nies, a male model with limited education and not much going on upstairs to hearing how finalist Jennifer Massey has degrees from Princeton and Harvard
Jennifer did not win, her opponent in the finals, Kelly, wound up hearing those magical words of “you’re hired”, joining Bill from Season 1 as the two winners of the competition. There are so many comments you could make on this finale, three hours of pure egotistical celebration, that ego being Donald Trump, but it was entertaining above all else. The night was clearly not a good one for Jen who had to listen to person after person describe Kelly as the ultimate person while very little was said about her. It was an especially nice touch to keep showing the two them sitting in the back and watching, Kelly trying to hide his smile while Jen secretly plotted a way to kill him without anyone seeing. When the big moment finally arrived Trump took his time, though based on all the comments throughout the night it was pretty obvious Kelly was going to win. Jen didn’t go down without a fight and at one point it looked as if she was going to hijack the entire proceedings by talking over anyone and everyone. In the end she didn’t win, the main reason being that most people just didn’t like her, which I think is awesome. Awesome in that while you can make a case that Kelly was better, it wasn’t a huge gap and the pure dislike towards Jen clearly overpowered that. A lot of people got on Ivana’s case, for both her skirt dropping and her extreme animosity towards her blond rival but I understood where she was coming from. If there is one thing I despise more than anything else it is someone taking credit for something that wasn’t there idea. Jen’s full fledged stealing of the Levi’s idea, one that Ivana pretty much made her herself, that the executives at Levi’s loved and that Jen for the majority of the mission couldn’t seem to grasp, was for me the smoking gun. I realize she could rationalize as it as stepping up and seizing the moment, but for those of us watching at home it came off as sleazy. Plus, let’s not even get into the fact that she was fond of throwing out the verbal jab of “you call yourself a man?” to Kelly quite frequently. Now I’m no military spokesperson but I do have to think that if you went to West Point AND Army Rangers School and was able to excel at all the tasks, both physical and mental, that you have proved yourself a man, at least in the traditional sense. The fact that Jen would just so carelessly toss out this line, to which there is no real response aside from making some overtly sexual comment that would have ruined it all for Kelly, almost helped her win the finals, but in the end Trump made the right decision.
Many people would have been tempted to turn off the by then two and a half hour finale but they would have missed some choice moments if they had. As has become tradition, after the winner is announced all of the candidates are brought out for a little QA session, this time hosted by Regis Philben. The enjoyable parts of this segment are the questions asked to certain contestants, who despite having been fired early, made their mark on the season. One in particular, Stacie J, an African American Female who owns a Subway in Harlem, was asked about her bizarre behavior from earlier in the season in which she appeared to questioning a Magic 8 Ball for advice on a major decision. Her odd antics led to her being fired by Trump helped along by the collective mutiny against her by the other women. They showed the perfunctory clip and then Trump asked her, very matter of factly, “What the hell she was thinking?” Rather than give some standard answer about how she was caught in a bad moment Stacey took it upon herself to explain how the reality process works, and how footage can be manipulated to make people look a certain way and also began to provide background on when and where all that happened and how it wasn’t as big of a deal as it seemed on television. Now we all know the deal with reality television, the fact that hundreds of footage is cut into small thirty or sixty minute segments to generate the story the producers want to show. We aren’t stupid, we realize this, and we just don’t want it to interrupt our enjoyment of the show and certainly don’t need bitter contestants rubbing our faces in it. I have a feeling Mr. Trump knows this by the way he cut off Stacey in mid-ramble by offering up a generic, “You are great, you’ll do big things” send off. The look on Stacey’s face was not one of happiness as she knew first hand that she had just been put in her place for attempting to reveal the dirty little secrets that everyone already knows but doesn’t want to be reminded of.
Apprentice musings aside, the finale illustrated the radical change in direction of reality shows, a point I made at the beginning of this article. The godfather of modern reality television is obviously MTV’s “The Real World.” The first season of this groundbreaking show was in 1992 and it created the template for which all other shows have followed. Technically speaking the reality genre is not new, as any game show or dating show such as “The Dating Game” was in essence a reality show that used real people as their performers. Additionally PBS first broadcast a documentary series that chronicled the lives of a real life American family in the 1970’s. For the purpose of this article though we will bestow the forefather status to that first Real World cast in New York. The show was unique in that it brought together seven strangers, from different backgrounds, with different lives and placed them under one roof to see what happens. Okay, to see what happens when people stop being polite and start getting real. You happy now?
What made the show so compelling, in the simplest of terms, is that these were people who had their own lives, their own jobs, their own personalities, who all just happened to be group together. The fact the show first aired in 1992 is extremely important in that it occurred during the height of Gen X. We all remember Gen X, the disaffected generation who were dealing first hand with the consequences of a combined 12-year term of Reagan-Bush when the country became divided between the old conservative guard and the younger generation that found itself without much direction, with few jobs to be had and a skewed view of the world at large. The music of the time spoke volumes, highlighted by Nirvana and its new version of punk, lamely called Grunge by writers desperate for a new buzzword. More telling of the collective mindset at that time are the movies that came out during the years of 1992 through 1994, such as Singles, True Romance, Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, representing the holy trinity of Senor Tarantino. Aside from Mister Quentin, you had directors like Kevin Smith and Robert Rodriguez circumventing the traditional studio system to get their films made, and musicians like Beck hitting the mainstream with 1994’s “Mellow Gold.” The point being that young people, in this case ages 18-24 had something to say, whether it was valid or not, it was something. They wanted to make some sort of difference and had strong opinions, they were jaded by the world that surrounded them and were trying to make their way without giving in to the standard system. It was this reasoning that made it a good decision to create “The Real World” to serve as a microcosm of the country at large. For several years, The Real World stood alone as the sole mainstream reality show, later being joined by Road Rules, which itself played a key role in the changing world of reality programming.
Much has been written about the single most defining moment in Real World history, that being the 3rd season in San Francisco, the famous Puck/Pedro season. Pedro gets all the credit and deservedly so for putting a human face on the AIDS epidemic that until then was little more than a whisper in parts of this country. It was the watershed moment of the series, one hailed by critics of all levels as a truly transcendent television moment. The opposite of Pedro was Puck, the crude bike messenger who appeared to be on the show for the sole purpose of becoming a star, a personality, the likes of which each person on reality shows these days strives to be. As is the case with most high points, what follows is a slow descent from the days of glory. This is something no one talks about that much but is equally, if not more important, than the Pedro moments.
In 1996, the fifth season of “The Real World” took place in Miami and it introduced a new dynamic to the show. In the previous season most cast members had jobs going into the show or quickly found employment so as to not just sit around all day and party and be utterly useless, as other casts would soon become. For the Miami season the show provided the situation where the house members would receive $50,000.00 to create a successful business of their choosing. Of course this never happened as they never managed to agree on what business they should run and spent more time arguing than actually formulating plans. Clearly this was not what MTV had intended but at least they were getting some great confrontations out of it and next to sex in the house, that was all they could ask for. But in regards to sex, they got that too and that changed everything.
For all the talk about Pedro, or Stephen slapping Irene, or Neil getting his tongue bitten off, the infamous threesome in the shower between Mike, Melissa and some slutty waitress from a comedy club represents the most important moment in not only Real World, but all of reality television history. Like Martin Luther posting his diatribe on the door of the Church, the threesome split the reality universe in two. The producers had the sudden realization that as opposed to trying to tell compelling stories based on the real lives of people, it would be much easier and equally as entertaining to watch them give in to their most primal instincts and start drinking, partying and having sex as much as possible. From there, everything changed.
Where once you had the Real World that aimed to tell the true story of real people and hope that along the way some sexual activity resulted, now there was a clear shift in the overall mission. Out was the thoughtful, educated, goal oriented cast member and in was the easy going, party all the time individual who joined the show with no other goal in mind than to drink as much as possible and use their newfound celebrity to get laid as much as possible. The change didn’t occur just on television but in all forms of entertainment. Is it any surprise that in 1997, the year following the Miami season of The Real World that musical acts like The Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears first popping up on the cultural radar? Where as in 1992, the first season in New York, Nirvana was the dominant musical force, five years later, in 1997, it was five guys from Orlando who were better dancers than singers, who had been pretty much constructed to be a pop group where on top. The world was changing, and reality television had helped lead the way.
Initially the split was more one sided than you would think as every reality show that was on television seemed to embrace the new mandate of beauty way before brains. The Real World clearly went that route, though they made sure to have a provision that all cast members were now required to work on a project together as a way to ensure that even slackers like the ones on their shows would be forced to do something productive. Road Rules grew in popularity as well, ceasing to be the poor red headed stepchild to The Real World and becoming an iconic show in its own right. You could even say that at this point it was Road Rules that become more influential in that the basic premise, putting people in unusual circumstances led directly to such shows as The Amazing Race and Fear Factor. Survivor could also be included, but that show will be explored a bit latter on.
As is the case in any new trend there is a point of maximum saturation, where the people cease being entertaining and become downright embarrassing. If any member of the Real World ever fit this description it would be David of the New Orleans cast. Where to begin with David, the freakishly muscular piano player with a hoop through his nose, raised on the mean streets of Chicago but with the fragile ego of a Southern belle. He also enjoyed speaking a nonsensical language, had a fondness for loose women, and seemed to strive on confrontation. Basically your typical idiot 21 year old, which he was at the time, and I’d like to think that at this point in his life he looks back on how he acted and is ashamed and embarrassed, because he should be. Though research shows that in 2001 he was arrested for soliciting a $10 hooker in Chicago so maybe he is still the same. For not only did he make a colossal fool of himself once, but twice, in moments that will live forever on that show. The first was his song, “C’mon on be my baby tonight” that was accompanied by a video for their public access show. For those of you who have never seen this piece of artistry my words can’t come close to doing it justice. What I will say is that in addition to the most nonsensical lyrics of all time the song was accompanied by the classic shot of David talking on his cell phone next to a Range Rover that was not his car but he acted as if it was. I realize in plain text it doesn’t have the same effect and for that I would say your best course of action is to ask someone who is well versed in Real World lore for his or her opinion of said song and video. Their reaction will tell you all you need to know.
The second incident revolved around David’s feature on the television show that the cast was working on. The television show was MTV’s way of making the cast work but not challenging them too much, such as the radio station work in Seattle or the Community Center in Boston and again in Chicago. Not to belittle these jobs as they are all important in their own way, but clearly MTV realized their mistake in Miami by offering money and no direction and now instead forces set employment on all the cast members. In this instance David was producing a fashion show feature for their show in New Orleans, but in classic David fashion, his models wound up being strippers and their show was one that pushed the very boundaries of decency on public television. The kicker was that the show was all female, save for David, who also modeled in the show himself, which really tells you all you need to know. In true self centered delusion, one that became the calling card of most young twenty year olds in the late 90’s, he took his assignment and manipulated to not only serve his ego of being featured on television but also the opportunity to surround himself with scantily clad women. If you could capture one moment that defined the late 90’s and reality television, this was it, the David Fashion show.
What happened is that reality went from one extreme, that being Pedro on San Francisco Real World to David on New Orleans Real World. Class to crass in the arch of one series, and something had to give. The backlash was beginning as people started to demand more from their reality shows, where some people wanted more trash and more sleaze. Then it happened, the explosion of reality television, one that found it divided into two distinct sects, much like religion.
On one end of the spectrum were the more intellectual shows, such as “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” and “The Weakest Link” as well as “Big Brother” and “Survivor” who managed to toe the line between strategy and decision-making and voyeuristic fantasy. “The Apprentice” continues in that tradition as the focal point of the show is to perform well in tasks, with little concern for developing relationships. On the flip side of the equation, were the style shows, ones that packed little substance whose whole goal was showcase good looking people under the guise of a finding true love. “The Bachelor” and it’s subsequent off spring fit into this category, along with stalwarts like “Blind Date” and “The Fifth Wheel.” Proving equally as popular it seemed as if the proper balance had been achieved within the reality universe. There was third tier of reality shows as well, ones that centered around competitions such as the hugely popular “American Idol” or “America’s Top Model” but those dealt more with the competition aspects as opposed to delving deep into personal stories.
Along the way there have been some noticeable exceptions, shows that have been so awful that even a public starved for reality rejected them, “The Benefactor” and “Dog Eat Dog” come to mind. Perhaps the biggest surprise, at least to me, was the utter failure of the show “Am I Hot?” Decreed to be the most crass show of its time the premise was simply having people walk up on stage and judged solely on their looks they would be deemed hot or not, with the help of flashing neon signs and rings and buzzers. Sure the crude nature of having Lorenzo Lamas use a laser pointer to point out flaws was a bit over the top, but as a whole I thought the show was great, it was inventive, it was real. Maybe that is why people didn’t like it. Much like Stacey J getting cut off during her answer about how the footage is edited a certain way, “Am I Hot?” hit too close to home in its presentation. This was a show that had no plot, no story, no twist or turn, it was simply a contest to see who was hot, and wasn’t. If I remember correctly contestants weren’t even asked to speak but just stand there looking pretty and keeping quiet. If you think about it, that’s what all of the shows do that showcase good-looking people. A show like “The Bachelor” where an impossibly good looking single person gets to choose from 20 other great looking people is most painful to watch when these people are forced to talk. “Am I Hot?” removed that equation and just cut right to the chase, here are good-looking people and ugly people, that’s it. That is the show. The ideology is downright Seinfeldian in that it was about nothing. However, where as Seinfeld is hailed as a classic all time show, which it was, “Am I Hot?” is merely a footnote in reality history.
What this all proves is that as the collective appetite for reality continues to grow the television industry is more than happy to keep on feeding it. They even will change the menu to cater to certain tastes so as to keep everyone happy. What they won’t do, having learned their lesson, is pretend to be on the joke. The age-old axiom still rings true while people love making jokes, they can’t stand being the joke. Instead we like to pretend we are above it all that it’s kitsch and we watch for pure irony all the while standing and applauding when someone wins “Survivor” or creating websites based on hatred of characters. We want to have it both ways and it appears that as long as we watch and buy the requisite products and merchandise, the television industry will make sure we get what we want.
