Monday, May 9, 2011

Everything you need to learn about life you can learn from Reality TV


I have sort of stopped watching regular episodic TV these days because they have all become just the same old/same old. In the glut of CSI’s and NCIS’s and Law and Orders there is just not enough to interest me. You can tell who the murderer is in the first reel. He is the usually the white guy or the soldier or the cop. Never the drug dealer or the junkie son. Last week on Blue Bloods they pulled the same old shit when instead of the junkie son who lived in the basement being the murderer they made it the brother and sister who ran the car dealership. All of these shows like “Criminal Minds” and “The Mentalist” all run along the same predictable pattern. Whenever there is a figure that used to be respected like a businessman or clergyman or soldier you can bet they are the “real criminal.” It gets really old after a while.

So I spend my time watching reality TV. The Real Housewives. Celebrity Apprentice. Storage Wars. Hard Core Pawn. Pawn Stars. American Pickers. Jersey Shore. Mob Wives. Sister Wives. Say Yes to the Dress. What Not to Wear. American Idol. And all the rest. It is a welcome respite to the continual overwhelming douche baggery that is fictional episodic television these days.

When you watch American Idol you are watching a show you can see with the whole family. You don’t have to worry about content. They won’t be showing a dismembered body or tell you how a child rapist can get away with it. There are no serial killers or cannibals. Just people singing. Some of them better than others. This year it has been kind of sweet. They got rid of the glowering pissed off presence of Simon Cowell and up the star power with JLo and Steven Tyler. It is not for everyone and you can always find some douchenozzle to tell you how horrible it is and how they can’t really sing and what not. But what you see is America. People from all over the country who sing different styles and have different stories. Not the homogenized coastal elites that dominate the sensibility of episodic television.

When you see a show like Hard Core Pawn that is based in a Pawn shop in Detroit’s 8 Mile district you get a feel for what life on the edge feels like when you have to pawn you Microwave to get money to eat. America Pickers takes you to the backwoods of America to find eccentrics who have hoarded treasures that we would pass by and think were just junk. It’s an education on places I would never go and people I would never meet. I get a kick out of seeing how they do it in the backwoods of Alabama where some guy with no teeth might still have hundreds of motorcycles and old cars on his property. It is pretty amazing.

We love What Not to Wear because they have come to the store about 19 times. Whenever they have anybody bigger than a size 14 they come by and we hook them up with some great clothes. So we got a little insight into how they film these shows and we can pick the winners and the losers.

One cooking show we like a lot is “Extra Virgin” which stars actress Debi Mazer and her husband who is from Tuscany. They have a very warm and loving relationship and he cooks up amazing simple Italian meals. He reminds us of us. I have been making several of his dishes and they are just great. The love they have is palpable and it is really great TV. Cooking shows in general are much more enjoyable than any CIS Dayton or Law and Order Dubuque.

Now the Real Housewives is another kettle of fish. Each series is different but they all seem to follow the same pattern. You have the big fish, the mama bear, the one everyone is supposed to defer to and when you don’t the conflict arises. Vicki on the OC, Caroline on New Jersey, Kyle on Beverly Hills, and the disgusting Jill Zarin on New York are all the major players. Everyone else falls into a slot. There is always another Housewife who sets up in opposition to them and their fighting is the basis of the series. Gretchen on the OC, Danielle on Jersey, Camille Grammer on Beverly Hills and Bethanny Frankel were set up as the foils who opposed the queen bees. It is a lot like high school. But then so is life. But some of these shows take an interesting turn. Camille Grammer got a very poor edit but on her appearances on the reunion shows and elsewhere she proved to be a reasonable and relatively nice person who was willing to apologize and try to work things out. And Bethanny went on to tremdous success on her own spin off show which is a much better watch than her old series. The love story with her husband and the birth of her baby and her business success are all wonderful things to watch after a hard day’s work and make you smile. At least it makes me smile. And the fact that the Real Housewives of New York is just foundering just adds icing to the cake.

You used to get involved with the lives of fictional characters on your favorite shows. Would Hunter and Dee Dee ever get together? Would Cannon be able to squeeze out from behind the wheel of his Lincoln? Would Angie take off her top on Police Woman? What bizarre way will the next fiancé of a Cartwright die? But now most of the new fictional shows just don't have the same juice for me. They beat me over the head with political correctness and mind numbing liberal bullshit. I would much rather follow the day to day tribulations of Snookie and Vinny and the Guido’s of Jersey Shore. Will somebody shoot Les at American Jewelry because he ripped them off one too many times? Will the Pumpkinheaded kid win on Idol? Will somebody whack Teresa because they can’t deal with her shit anymore? These are the questions that I think about.

So I love reality TV. I don’t care what you think. Millions of Americans agree with me. And that is not just the ones that Snookie has blown. It is what TV is all about these days.

Take your pompous disapproval over to Charlie Rose, Meet the Press, and Boringheads.

The world has passed you by.

17 comments:

Carl from Chicago said...

Try watching "Workaholics" on comedy central. It is hilarious. Agreed on reality tv. I like the Beekman Boys and their farm and fashion police.

I'm over at LITGM with Dan from Madison. Good stuff

ricpic said...

I love the crack about Cannon. One of the real pleasures of that show was watching William Conrad pump himself up into anger mode. Each episode had at least one angry scene in which you could actually sense Conrad revving up - "Here we go, one more time" - to go ballistic.

Trooper York said...

Man I feel exactly the same as Frank when I try to get out of the back seat of one of those cabs with the really small back seats.

chickelit said...

They beat me over the head with political correctness and mind numbing liberal bullshit.

So who watches the stuff and keeps them afloat?

Reminds me of the story of the NYT.

Their circulation can decrease; their share price can plummet;
the quality of their product can decrease as a consequence. And yet:

They seem to be thriving quite nicely & big bloogers still link to them without fail.
I think for some it's just a visceral habit- like old people and their need for a paper newspaper.

Trooper York said...

Well there are a lot of people who are hooked on the habit. We went to visit my mother and father in laws last week and they had NCIS reruns playing the whole time we were there.

I joke with wife all the time. You can tell who the audience is by the commercials. You watch TV Land and it is Little Rascal scooters, Reverse Mortgages and yogurt that makes you shit. You watch Comedy Central and it is Girls Gone Wild Videos and Chat lines. So I guess it is mostly old people who watch regular TV for these old school shows.

Trooper York said...

I thought the Times was losing money and is only around because some rich Mexican guy bailed them out to kill any stories about him?

Opus One Media said...

oysters my friend oysters.

don't waste your time on mere mortals or little demi's or these other things that go bump in the night.

i'm dying to tell your wife you are a good egg although she won't believe me and she knows better.

Opus One Media said...

you know of course that a son of a bitch is merely the off spring of some louse who could outrun the neighborhood dog.

just sayin'.

Ron said...

I love cooking shows too...Extra Virgin is fun. But I'm officially sick of cooking "competition" shows. The Food Network has way too many of them (5?, 6?) and they fall into the same damn patterns each time, so it gets boring.

Titus said...

ALERT, Jersey Shore Characters are not going to Italy. They were all ready to go in Newark and were stopped.

Devastating.

reader_iam said...

Hey, Troop, did you ever read "In One Era and Out the Other" by Sam Levin (published 1973)? I assume it's way out of print at this point, but I think you'd enjoy it. You remind me of that book in a number of ways which I'd guess many of your readers would recognize in a heartbeat if they read the book.

[I read that book pretty much when it came out, at my Brooklyn-born grandma's house in Illinois. Years later, I inherited it after she died in 1991, and I still have it to this day.)

reader_iam said...

LOL. I guess I just said you that you remind me of that grandmother. And you know what? You do. In this instant, I now realize you always have.

Well, that's not a bad thing. She's been gone these going-on 20 years, but she still seems so real and present to me, and I think of her so often it's regularly.

Huh. How 'bout that.

Ruth Anne Adams said...

We watch several, but most of our choices don't overlap yours. Survivor this season is the best it's been in years. I love Boston Rob. Love him.

We also watch the shooting, killing, risking-being-killed-while-working shows: Top Shot, Swamp People, Mounted in Alaska, Ax Men, Gold Rush, and Sons of Guns.

I guess our tastes skew Southern and rural. Whatchagonnado?

Trooper York said...

Hey that's what makes the world go round Ruth Anne. Happy Belated Mothers day to you and reader and all the other mothers who drop by.

Dan from Madison said...

I love these types of shows where you don't have to think. I stumbled upon Jersey Shore once and can't quit - it is a non stop laugh riot. Outside of that the only tv I watch is MMA, football, baseball, and the occasional South Park episode. Yes I am shallow.

Trooper York said...

Check out Hard Core Pawn on TruTV.

As a Midwest guy you have to see what is going on in Detroit. It is very interesting.

BJM said...

So I love reality TV. I don’t care what you think.

Me too! I love "Pawn Stars", Chumley and Pop make my extended family seem almost normal. "American Pickers" is a hoot. I love the way the old timers make them buy crap to get the stuff they want and they try to talk it up in the cutaway and you know it's crap and they know we know they've been skinned.

I was surprised that James went this week. I expected Haley to go as did the guys, they seemed a little shocked. Ole Punkinhead looks to have a lock on it. But then we thought Lambert did too...so you never know.

There's been a lot of trashtalk about JLo and Tyler, but they've rescued the show. Watching Tyler's & JLo's outfits is entertaining in of itself. Although since Tyler dropped the F bomb he's been a bit too low key.

I haven't watched this week's episode of Survivor or Top Chef Masters yet so am in the dark. I save a few shows for the weekend when there's not much to watch. Man, I hope Rob takes Philip to the finals. I am dying to hear his speech to the jury.

I'm a huge fan of the Hoppes. It's been very touching watching Bethenny working out her demons and embracing happiness. Of all the housewives she would be the most fun to hang with.

Jill Zarin runs her mouth then plays the innocent victim, her act is tiresome.

However, I think LuAnn is the power behind the mean girls, not Jill. She prevented Jill and Bethenny from reconciling and now she's playing the vapid Kelly like a harp. LuAnn has to do something for air time cuz she's as boring as paint drying.

Ramona rocks, I love that she and Alex have turned the tables on the mean girls. New girl Cindy is out to lunch and Sonja's just busting the Morgan's balls.

It's satisfying to see Vicky get hers on RHOOC. She really is an awful person. I really don't get what Tamra thinks she's accomplishing with lizard boy Eddie, he's creepy. Any guy with a pair and a bank account would avoid Tamra like the plague.

Gretchen and Slade just bump along, dysfunctional but seemingly happy. Gretchen will emerge as the winner this season because she's sweetly ditzy enough to be likeable and driven to succeed. I don't think she will marry Slade.

I'm looking forward to RHONJ...can't wait to see what Teresa does next.

"Watch What Happens" is a must see too...it's such cheesy dumb fun...didja know that Andy Cohen's a Exec VP at Bravo? He's responsible for a lot of our fav shows.

Reality fans like teh crazy...which 'splains a lot, don't it?