October 5, 2004
Reality Television:
GET A LIFE!
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    The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, The Wire, Real Time w/ Bill Maher, Entourage, Curb your Enthusiasm, Legendary Nights, Oz, Arli$$, Dennis Miller Live, Tracey Allman, Reverb... and those are just the shows on HBO I like.  Lets not forget other hit shows that I don't watch, like Sex in the City, Deadwood, Taxicab Confessions, G-String Divas, Real Sports, and that Bob Costas guy.  A fantastic movie selection, premium boxing contracts with the biggest names in boxing (Roy Jones Jr., Oscar De La Hoya, Manny Pacquiao, Vitali Klitschko, to name a few), award-winning documentaries, amazing mini-series' like Band of Brothers and slews of others, and made-for-TV movies like Pentagon Wars that are of a quality that competes with Hollywood's biggest-budget films.  I love HBO, as millions of others do, and over the past decade or so I've considered HBO to be the last frontier of television, a holy place where we we are safe from one wretched format... Reality Television.
     Enter Tom Evangelista, a New York City Bail Bondsman and Bounty Hunter.  He and his family own and operate a business, and on HBO's newest show, "Family Bonds," HBO tracks Evangelista and his cohorts as they deal with family matters by day, and play cops and robbers in the big apple by night.  But there's nothing clever about this show, comparable to other HBO shows that deal with families and the business' they operate... Tom Evangelista isn't troubled by his mother's interference into his racketeering game, and dead people aren't offering him advice on love and life.  Family Bonds is, sadly, a reality television show.  A reality television show on HBO.
     In the early 1990's, MTV took a bunch of twentysomethings and moved them into an apartment.  They documented everything from brushing their teeth to rowdy fist fights.  "The Real World" drew in massive audiences at the time, and still does today, and set a standard that would start to take over the television industry in the late 90's.  The reality TV boom quaked almost every television network, and by 2001 the airwaves were flooded with people stranded on islands, people eating intestines and dangling from cliffs, pop star talent searches, extreme wedding situations, and other such shows that rely on human nature's desire to snoop and mettle.  Today, the Reality TV game is still pounding away at the ratings, and probably will for another five years or so... that is, unless I could have it my way.
     People today are drama queens.  Men, women, kids... people need excitement in their lives.  With a fledgling music scene, a surpressive government, crappy cinema, and enough anti-depressant drugs to make Woody Allen star in a G-rated movie (with his G-rated wife, too), it's no wonder people turn to reality TV to add some flare to their lives.  People watch reality TV because it allows them to mentally live vicariously through other people in other situations.  These programs allow us to fulfill our rubber-necking quotas day by day, placing us in positions where we feel like we're a part of something exciting... or drab.  And with viewer participation, people can interfere with these programs and alter the outcome of situations.  FACT: In 2003, more people voted in the American Idol season finale than they did in the 2000 Presidential election.  Scary, huh?  People care more about a tramp who sleeps with fellow cast members on a reality TV show than actual real-world events.  Is it a simple matter of coincidence that the number of Prozac subscriptions has risen steadily alongside reality TV show ratings?  That divorce rates have increased as well?  Possibly... but even if these are just coincidences explainable by some other phenomena, it would be hard to not accredit some of these numbers to reality TV.  After all, a girl in St. Louis Missouri attempted to kill herself when she wasn't accepted on American Idol.  A man in Colorado shot his wife because he thought she was showing the same signs that cheating cast member on a reality TV show was showing.  And lets not forget the "Survivor Club," a group of people who attempted to steal a boat in Florida so they could find an uninhabited island in the west indies to live out a real-life version of the show, where being voted off meant being "offed."
     And now reality TV has struck an all time low.  My mom told me about a show she's been watching called "Cheaters."  On this show, a person who suspects their significant other is cheating can contact the producers by phone or e-mail and a film crew will follow your loved one around, documenting what they do, and if they're guilty, the crew will have you confront your boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, or wife, on national TV show, capturing the ensuing arguements and heartbreak.  This isn't entertainment.  It's not a documentary program.  It's just sick, flat-out sick.  As a member of the human race who knows what it feels like to be cheated on, lied to, heartbroken and shamed, I know that emotions felt during moments like this aren't to be toyed with.  They aren't open for public display.  The world has no right to pry into the private lives of these people.  The sad part is, there's people out there willing to participate on a show such as this.  Is it because they want to know the truth?  Or is it due to the fact that these people have been brainwashed by television's stomache-churning love for capturing raw emotion on film?
     I'm begging all of you, all of the Matt Rock Online readers and all of the people abroad, to not only stop watching this filth, but try to get people you care about (or don't care about for that matter), to tune to something different as well.  Don't let yourselves be considered a part of the sub-human.  Don't be a lab rat for the television networks who want to entertain us by watching other people's lives.  Maybe if you got off the couch and went out into the world to find things that are truly entertaining to YOU... friends, relationships, a social life of your own... you wouldn't have to picture yourself in the shoes of somebody different.  We're all human, and experience things day by day that can often times rival these so-called reality television shows.  But it's up to you to go out and live life, instead of sitting at home watching other people live life on television.  You can live someone elses life... or, my friends, you can live your own.

-Matt Rock