Bill: Hi, I'm Bill Maher.
Tonight we're gonna be talking about reality TV.
Why?
Because it's the law.
America loves reality TV.
We love the whole idea of celebrity for nothing.
We'll all have our turn, and we won't have to be interesting or brave or clever or have a speck of talent.
It will be like being Christina Aguilera.

[Applause]

[Cheers and applause]

Please.
But until then, we're just like the moronic hero of "Being There," we like to watch.
In the 60s, student protesters shouted, "The whole world is watching." Well, the whole world is still watching, but we're watching each other in the shower.

[Laughter]

Why here?
Why now?
Why is it that Americans would rather watch people fight for food than watch "Ladies Man."

[Laughter]

Or maybe I've already answered my own question.
Anyway, tonight we have three reality TV veterans and Super Dave, and we can ask them.

[Cheers and applause]


Bill: All right, let's meet our panel.
He is one of the contenders for boy band super-stardom on "Making The Band," Fridays at 9:00 right here on ABC, Bryan Chan.
Bryan!

[Cheers and applause]

There you are.
How are you, sir?
Good to see you.
Thank you.
All right, the nurse who married a multimillionaire.
She graces the cover of the August issue of "Playboy," Darva Conger right over here.

[Cheers and applause]

Hey, let them go there, honey.
Nice to see you.
She was the fourth castaway to be voted off the island.
Direct from the "Survivor's" tribal council -- Ramona Gray is right over here.

[Cheers and applause]

Hey, how are you?

Ramona: Okay.

Bill: Good to see you.
Thank you for coming by.
And he's a very funny star of the upcoming film --
The greatest superstar/entertainer in the world today, Super Dave Osborne.

[Cheers and applause]

All right.

Darva: It's not me.

[Laughing]

I guess I should get used to it, huh?

Bill: Getting right to it, huh, Dave?

Dave: This is Rick Rockwell naked.

[Laughter]

Bill: It's not.

Darva: Where did he get those?

Bill: No, but -- I know.
Well, I'm sure she looks great.
She looks great right here.

Dave: So do you.

Bill: Thank you very much.

Dave: Your welcome.

Bill: But this is about reality, Dave.

Dave: Well, then, I take it back.

[Light laughter]

Bill: But you do introduce the show in an interesting way because you were curious, and that's what this is all about.
We are all curious about why people want to do the things they have been doing in front of cameras.
But the first thing I want to introduce is -- now, I've watched these shows in preparation for this show, not because I'm curious --

[Light laughter]

And I have to say, my first point is, it's not reality television.
It's not real.
Get wise, people.
Get more cynical.

[Applause]

It's not real, okay?
None of this is real.

Dave: Any time there's a camera in a room, it's not real.

Ramona: How can you say that?
Oh, come on.

Bill: All right, yeah, but I wanna hear it.

[Talking all at once]

Bryan: And cameras are on you 24-7.
There's not a point where you can disguise.
I mean --

Bill: 24-7?

Ramona: 24-7.

Darva: You are always aware of the camera's presence.
It's stage reality, and you react in ways that you wouldn't ordinarily do.
All I can speak is from my different --

Dave: Would you eat rat if you didn't have a camera on you?

Bill: If you were a survivor on a --

Ramona: If I was starving to death, I would.

Dave: Well, why don't you eat it in the green room?

Ramona: I didn't eat it in the --

[Laughing]

Bill: Let me show you this picture.
Show the picture.
This is, I think, an "Entertainment Weekly" or something, keeping it real.
Look at this.
Can you see the camera crew all around the island people?
There's a camera guy.
There's a boom man.
There's a best boy.
There's a key grip.

Ramona: Sound guy.

Bill: Sound guy.
You're telling me that at that moment --

Ramona: That was real.
Yes.

Bill: Well, I know that's real.
You can have a private conversation?

Ramona: We rode for three hours, and that instance when we were coming on beach, I'd been throwing up.
That was real.
I'd been rowing for three -- that was real.
None of that was staged.
I wouldn't have gotten on a lab for three hours --

Darva: I don't think that they're saying that it's staged, I'm saying they would react in a way to certain circumstances because you know the camera is there.

Bill: Yeah, let, let --
go ahead.
You two tell us --

Bryan: If you had a camera following me around constantly, I mean, there are certain things I'm sure, initially, that you would alter in your day-to-day behavior that would kind of, you know, accommodate for the fact that there's a camera there.
But over an extended period of time, I mean, my experience lasted for about six weeks.
You can't constantly be faking your way through this experience, and a camera, I mean, especially when you're in an interview and it's staring straight into your soul, you cannot lie to a camera and say that you're this person that you're not.
I mean, it'll see right through that.

Bill: What kind of [bleep ] is that?
You can't lie to the camera.

[Laughter]

This country is living on the fact that you can lie to a camera.

[Applause]

Why do you think George Bush and Al Gore are running for president?
'Cause they can lie to a camera.

Bryan: What aspect of my programming do you feel is not real?

Dave: It's an interesting idea.
Okay, "Survivor" is a very interesting concept if you do it once.
But slowly but surely, all of television is going to become this reality stuff, and you're going to turn into PBS and Pavarotti's going to be singing a song, and then you'll follow him into his trailer and watch him take a dump.

[Laughter]

Darva: Right.
You know what --

[Laughing]

Ramona: Ew.

Bill: Dave, that is an unnecessarily gross image to give it on my show.

[Laughter]

I'd rather watch you eat a rat than --

Bryan: I think the misconception that people have is when they see the show, they're watching a sequence of events that might not have happened in that particular order.
I mean, obviously things are edited and spliced from hours and hours of footage into a 22-minute episode.
I mean, yeah, there are things that are going to be altered, but, I mean, you certainly are seeing -- you're not someone lip-syncing and dialogue being laid in over track like when you are acting.

Dave: No, but you're faking it.
You don't realize it --

Ramona: No, you're not.

Dave: Yes you are.
The camera's on you.

Bill: No, I don't think the word fake it.
They're improv-ing it.

[Talking over each other]

Darva: I don't think anybody's faking it.
They're not faking, but you're being placed in a circumstance or scenario that you wouldn't ordinarily be in, and you're doing it in a very public venue.

Ramona: Are you saying you can't be real in that -- ?

Bill: I'm saying, when the camera is on you, right, that's the heisenberg principle.

Darva: You're always aware of it and --

Ramona: Are you saying you can't be yourself?
Because I'm being myself right now.

[Talking at same time]

Bill: Okay but, you see, what people say -- I heard you say it right here on this show -- you just said, "You know, when the camera's on you, you forget about it." No, the people watching forget about it 'cause they don't see it.
You never forget about it.

Bryan: I do.

Bill: The light is bright.
I've been on camera.
I've been walked up --

Dave: You wouldn't if there wasn't a camera and you wouldn't have gone through what you did.
You would have left after a day.

Bryan: How would she have survived on an island?

Dave: You would have gone over there --

Ramona: Just because.
You've never wanted to do something just because?

Dave: But I would go to club --
no, I'm not going to eat --

[Talking over each other]

[Laughter]

What is the point of that?

Bryan: What is the difference between the shows that you do and the show that we do?
What you do --

Dave: Because I know what I'm doing when I show myself.

Bryan: There's no script to what we did.
There is no script to surviving on an island.
There's no script to "Making The Band."
Dave: I know, but you --
look, before you did --
am I talking here?

[Laughter]

Bill: What are you saying?

Dave: I always wanted to know this.
When multimillionaire Rick first took you home to his magnificent castle, did he carry you over the chainlink fence, or kick in the gate?

Darva: As we discussed earlier, I've never been to his house.

[Laughter]

The bad thing or the honest thing about that, was that was over before that TV show ever aired.
Before any of you ever knew about it.
Before it even aired.

Dave: Her honeymoon was so much tougher than eating rats.

Darva: Excuse me.
Now I'm talking.

Dave: Oh, I'm sorry.
Go ahead.

Bill: You are.
And she was.

Dave: Am I going to get kicked off this show?

Ramona: Ah-ha, you're out of here.

Bill: I'm sorry.
You're right.

Darva: You know I don't have a problem getting rid of men in my life.

Bill: What were you saying?

Darva: I'm just saying that before this, what people don't realize is that, prior to the show ever airing -- it was taped.
It wasn't live.
Prior to it ever airing before anybody knew anything about it, it was over.
It was done.
I made a huge mistake going on that show.
And I don't think it compares to what you guys are doing because what I did was morally controversial.
It was -- it was a big mistake and a dumb idea for a show.
I'm not going to comment on the ones that you are on because I think it is a little different.
And I'd say that I accept that.
And it was a one-night deal.
But much of what I did was because of TV cameras being there, and it did alter reality for me.
And I tried to set it right as soon as I could.
But as we all see --

Bill: I'm just saying, when you look at that picture on the beach of all of those camera people around you, and I know, when you're whatever you're doing in your bedroom, or you're in the living room, the lights are bright.
You can't not ignore that.
It's the heisenberg principle that something being watched alters --

Ramona: There were no lights.
There were no lights.

[Talking at once]

Dave: Aren't there nights?
Oh, come on.

Ramona: To compare what you and I did is two different things, I think, except they were reality programming.

Bryan: We voluntarily entered into the situation where we saw the goal in mind.
For her, obviously, it was win money from --

Dave: You know, let me tell you.
The difference is --

[Talking all at once]

Yours is a television show.
Your show is not a bad idea.
It's a good idea.
Your show is an interesting idea.
Her show was a ridiculous idea.
It wasn't her fault.

[Laughter and applause]

Darva: And I'm the first one to agree with that.

Dave: It is not Darva's fault.
I mean, she participated in the show.
The only thing is, is maybe -- the only thing I would say you might have done a little differently --

Darva: You say one thing?
I can think of several.

Dave: -- Is come out and say, "I did this for the --
to be on it, to be on television, and for whatever, and I'm enjoying it."
Darva: I've come out with --
I've come out with the complete truth.
I went there because I was gonna go to vegas for a week, and I was going to be on TV and wave to my mom and say hi.
I thought I was there for a filler.
Thought I was going to be the one in the background.
I thought they had it all set up.
I really did.

Bryan: But at what point do you say, "All right, this is crossing over the boundary between losing my integrity and --

Darva: When you come out it.
When I came out.

Dave: When Rick got down on one knee.

Darva: Since when he was there.
When I came out in the wedding gown, it was like, "Oh, this." I felt like this little bride that popped off the top of the wedding cake, and I knew by that time I was really uncomfortable.
There's a thousand people in the studio --

[Laughter and applause]

Bill: We have to take a break.
We'll be right back.
You're bad.
You're bad, sir.
You're bad.

[Cheers and applause]



[Cheers and applause]

Bill: All right, welcome back to "Who Wants To Marry A Survivor?" And we were --

Darva: "Who Wants To Make The Band And -- ?"
Bill: Yeah, I know.
And, you know, I have to say, watching these shows, I watch them because I think anything that's this successful deserves to be watched, at least a couple times.
But I wouldn't watch them again.
I'll tell you why.
Because they make me feel crappy as a human being because it's all about exclusion.
It's all about who's not good enough and who can we shove off?
And look at the tape of you.
Watch this.
This is poor Bryan, who I'm sure --

Bryan: If someone came up to me and offered me $1 million in exchange for this experience -- I wouldn't take it.
Wouldn't take it.
The smelling salts were actually right here.
The cue card was like right over there.

[Laughter]

Dave: But in that situation, I would pay $1 million to get that tape back.

[Laughter and applause]

Bryan: That's what it was.
For our experience, I think the difference between some show is that what you saw there is emotion.
It's, it's, it's what had happened.
It's what we thought.

Bill: Absolutely, but I just felt crappy as a human being partaking in this idea that we want to always push people out.
Why are we always having this velvet-rope society where somebody isn't good enough?
You've got to go.
And I tell you, both shows I watched, they kicked out the black people.
I don't know if that says anything.
But you got kicked out, and then the other guy on "Making the band" got kicked out.

Ramona: Those racists.
Why does it always got to be racist?

Bill: I don't know.
I'm just saying, I watched two shows.
Both times, the black people got kicked out.

Dave: I don't think people, I don't think people watch it as like an exclusionary kind of factor.
I think people watch it as, like, you root for the people that you like and you associate with, and you don't root for the people that you don't like.
I mean, you're watching a reality-based television.

Dave: That's the reality.
There's no real to it.

Bryan: There's nothing real to your stunts.
There's something real about this --

Bill: But we know that.

Darva: You've gone too far with that.
When I say it's not --
hold on.

Dave: You are smarter than I thought you were.

Darva: Hold on a minute.

[Laughter]

Bryan: See?
I told you.

Darva: When I say that there's been a stage reality, it doesn't mean that your reactions aren't true, because mine certainly was when he walked out and proposed to me.
That was like, oh, holy bleep.
That was true.
That was absolutely true, and I understand it.
What I'm saying, because it's staged, it's --

Ramona: But it's not staged.

Darva: No, not your reaction.
What they're doing.
What they're creating.

Bryan: They created a circumstantial environment.

Darva: Exactly.
So perhaps it would be better to say that the fool that you created.

Dave: As soon as you put a camera on --

Darva: They make these reactions happen.

Dave: It isn't -- you're performing.

Bill: Okay, we already covered that.

Darva: No, no, you're not performing.

Dave: Yes, I wouldn't be seating in my home talking to you people.
I don't know you.

[Laughter]

Bryan: Your reactions and your failure to react.

[Cheers and applause]

Bill: But even --
well, wait a second.
If I get back to the exclusionary, 'cause that's what bothers me.

Dave: Oh, please do.
Bothers me, too.

Bill: The reality thing, okay, I can live with that.
But it's like even on the "Real World," they always invited someone into the House who was a schmuck, who they'd wanna kick out --
a Puck or a Tek or Yuk.

[Light laughter]

Somebody that people would go, "Yuk, get him out of here." And that's to me so unhuman, unamerican -- everything I don't wanna be, I don't wanna partake in, that velvet rope.
Even though I can get past it now -- trust me, there was a lot of years in my life when I couldn't.
And I thought that was wrong.

Dave: Incidentally, I just gotta get this plug in.
I'm doing a new show for CBS.
It's called "Baby Talk" where we go into a maternity Ward, switch the babies around, and follow the mothers.

[Laughter and applause]

Bryan: I don't understand.

Bill: You know what?
All I can say is, don't give him any ideas.
We got to take a commercial.
We'll be right back.

[Cheers and applause]



[Cheers and applause]

Announcer: Join us next week on "Politically Incorrect" when Bill's guests will include "SNL's" Dana Carvey, from "Hollywood Squares" Whoopi Goldberg, from the "Chris Rock Show" Chris Rock, and from "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" Drew Carey.

Bill: All right, we were talking about the exclusionary aspect of these shows -- that someone has to be cast out from the garden or the band of Eden, and you wanted to say something.

Ramona: Right, I just wanted to make a couple of points.
Number one, people are excluded every day.
You have minorities being excluded, gays being excluded, short people are excluded.
Everyone's being excluded.
So why should our television be any different?
We live it every day.
Number two, you're saying there always has to be loser.
I really don't feel like I'm a loser.
I've actually never been a loser at anything I've ever done.
I've always excelled in sports.
I've always excelled in school.
Every college I applied to, I was accepted to.
Always had good grades.
I was always like this good kid, done community service.
Yet, I was voted off number four, but I don't feel like I'm a loser.
I'm on your show.

[Laughter]

You know, I don't think I'm a loser, you know?
I think it was a win-win situation.

[Applause]

Bill: But you're on my show --

Ramona: Because I'm what?
Because I'm a loser.

[Laughter]

Bill: I mean, because, you know --

Darva: What's the converse of that?
Technically I won.
Yeah, but I was still excluded.
I became a pariah.
I was a gold digger.
I was this.
I was that.
I was a prostitute.
I was all these horrendous things.
I was called these by people who don't know a thing about me.
They don't know anything about me.
And, yes, I did put myself in that position by going on this television show.
I accept full responsibility for that.
But what I've decided is that we've just, this is just a macrocosm of high school, and anonymity gives you bravery and the Internet is the bathroom wall.

Bill: Not just high school.
I noticed at the end of the "Survivors" show, now the chick who almost got voted off is having sex with one of the guys.

Darva: They didn't even have sex.

Bill: No, but it's like, she's bonding with what passes for the Alpha male on this island -- the guy who talks into a coconut.
Right, like he wouldn't do that if he wasn't on camera.
But I don't wanna go back to that.

Ramona: Well, that's him.

Bill: Oh, please.

Ramona: I'm serious.
Come on, bill.

Bill: There wasn't.
He's talking into a coconut as if it's a cell phone.

Ramona: And that's Greg.
That was Greg.

Bill: Right, and if there wasn't a camera there, he would do that?

Ramona: He's crazy.
He's crazy.

Bill: Hello.
Not.

[Light laughter]

Anyway, so she's shagging him now.
I mean, isn't that a microcosm of society?

Bryan: It is.
It is.
I mean, but to go on a television show where you know that you're going to be taped, if you act like you normally act, and you keep your integrity, and, you know, you don't let the cameras affect you in a way that you're going to alter your behavior, for you to become a different person while the cameras are there, you can only walk away from the experience saying, "I went out there, and whatever they capture, whatever they edit down into those 22-minute episodes, however they portray me, at least I know that I was there in that experience, and I stayed real, and I stayed true to myself.

Ramona: Exactly.

Darva: And I'm glad that you guys have that feeling.
I wish I did because I know what I did was completely out of character.

Bryan: But I think in your situation, I mean, you entered into it, and like you said, you knew as you got in that dress that you were making a wrong choice.

Darva: And I didn't know how to back away.
I didn't know how to step back.
I was overcome by the lights, the camera, the action.
If I do this, I'm in big trouble.
If I don't -- Whatever.
So many thoughts going through my head.
And it wasn't a long segment, and it wasn't days and days and weeks like you guys did.
And I would like to have thought that I would come to my senses by then.

Bill: Right, and all you would have do is have sex with Rick Rockwell.

Darva: Oh, gee.
Gee, that's the one smart choice I made.

Bill: Better to eat a rat on an island.

Darva: Bring on the rat.

[Laughter]

Dave: Let me say this.
The good thing about this whole thing, Rick will finally get to see her naked.

[Cheers and applause]

Bill: Is anyone here disturbed by a larger trend that people are willing to --

Dave: Oh, you mean disturbed or --

Bill: Yes, we know you're disturbed in general, but --
do you think by a larger trend, that people are willing to give up their privacy?
To me, privacy is one of the most --

Dave: But let me ask you a question.
Everyone is looking for the quick dollar, and now they're offering it.
"Millionaire" was a good concept because it was a simple show, and you could learn something.
The family could watch it.
Then there's 700 game shows.
Now there's this thing, and if you can win a $1 million eating a rat, you can make $2 million passing one.

[Laughter and applause]

Darva: Excuse me.
Wait, can I ask a question?

Bill: Yeah.

Darva: Did you guys go on for the money or the experience because, or the fame, etcetera and so on, the experience.
'Cause that's what striked me, and it does seem like an interesting experience.

Bill: Oh, I agree with that.
I think the fame is much more important if you count the money.

Dave: It's a combination.

Ramona: I would rather have the money that the fame.

Dave: Fame brings money.
Fame brings money.

Darva: Yeah, it does.

Bill: But people do things for fame without money.

Dave: Who?
Name one.

Bill: The people on "Cops."
Dave: Name one.

Bill: I could name a million.

[Talking all at once.]

Wait a second.
On "Cops" --
they're photographed at the lowest level of their life.
And they have to agree to it.

Dave: But that isn't because of fame.

Bill: They do.

Dave: Usually, they're given money for that.

Bill: It's not money.
They're not given money on "Cops."
Dave: You think that the people on "Cops" all sit home and say, "We're going to be on tonight?"
Bill: Of course.

[Laughter]

That is what they do.

Darva:They do?

Bill: They do.
I have to take a commercial.
We'll be right back.

[Cheers and applause]


Bill: All right.
There's Darva in "Playboy." Like you need another plug to help that thing sell.
All right.
Looks like I'm going on vacation to an island next week, 'cause Monday we have Drew Carey, Jerry Ryan, John Taylor, and Bill O'Reily, and I think I already lived that show.
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