Entertainment? You're Not Serious!

Well, I expect the people addicted to watching what is termed reality television do consider these offerings to be entertainment. Although why such artificially constructed scenarios where people are variously challenged, humiliated, celebrated, insulted, and generally encouraged to behave in ways unbecoming to those among us whose credentials as socially-responsible, civilly engaged people are unveiled as considerably otherwise is considered to be amusing or instructive.

Behaviour we've long associated with selfish children, self-obsessed adolescents, alternately narcissistic and self-loathing teens is being encouraged and admired when seeming adults demonstrate that they're no slouches when it comes to slinging insults at one another, chargine each other with behaviour unbecoming to practitioners of the latest cool trends, all in an effort to prove that they're somehow superior, more deserving of praise, their personal attributes laudable.

If it weren't so adolescently sad, it would be laughable. And therein, one supposes, lies the purported entertainment value. But people take these shows and their contestant-participants seriously. As though the content was important, the ends justifying somehow the means through which participants prove or disprove their very special status. This is all so utterly meaningless, so troublingly shallow as we unveil our very least human proclivities and seek to bring meaning to these hollow facades.

That so much public interest is invested in these pathetic programmes that call themselves "reality" when in fact they're about as artificial as they could possibly be, is absurd. Are people really and truly all that shallow? Could their values really be represented by the casual and light-headed intelligence we see portrayed by these earnest participants? Where on earth are the values that have been passed on from generation to generation to ensure that individuals recognize their social responsibilities to the culture within which they live?

People certainly are strange. Decades before reality television shows became a reality, Japanese television programming included a much-applauded and pretty entertaining number of game shows. The Japanese tend to be fairly restrained in their social niceties, the culture encouraging this as a means by which societal control can be exerted on a large population living in constrained geograph proximity. Courtesy to others was and is the order of the day. One does not bring public attention to oneself; one fits conveniently into the homogeneous society.

But on these game shows reluctance to participate in public displays of exuberance, one's lack of openness, one's unwillingness to participate in truly comedic and over-the-top skits geared to produce the ultimate in personal inconvenience, demonstrating physical clumsiness and lack of agility when challenged, flies out the window. Cultural convention is stood on its head. All in the name of entertainment and for a brief televised appearance of boldness and a devil-may-care attitude otherwise foreign to this particular society.

And that really was reality television. People showing themselves as they truly are, holding back nothing, cultural and social public restraints tentatively but briefly relaxed. The result was hilarity and good feeling, a truly entertaining spectacle of people unfazed by their lack of ability, the whole point of the enterprise being that they made the attempt, regardless of the outcome, and for this they were briefly celebrated. This was good-hearted and good-natured fun. And those with a hitherto hidden streak of extroversion briefly flirted with a kindly-dispensed notoriety; their 15 seconds of public acclaim.

At no time, however, were the contestants rude to one another, mean-tempered or officious, self-aggrandizing or demonstratively egotistical. Unlike the character traits better hidden that are so brazenly flaunted in today's reality shows. Kindly intent toward one another is certainly not the order of the day in these. Now it transpires that the British reality TV show "Celebrity Big Brother" has unveiled a situation where thousands of East Indians are rallying in support of a one-time Bollywood actress, Shilipa Shetty, where nasty-temperedcultural ridicule directed at her by her fellow contestants has kindled racism complaints.

Should we be surprised? After all, these shows rely on the avid attention of their audience, watching for episodes such as these which evoke the worst of manners, the least consideration for the well being of others, the most egregious lack of concern for miserable impulses to hurt other human beings for their popular acclaim. If people are personally insulted or defamed and the requisite result ensues, all the better; consider it collateral damage.

And no one, of course, considers the damage done to society when doltish behaviour resulting in harm to others is considered the norm, thought to be entertaining. The buzz affecting ratings, upping the ante on the bottom line really does reflect our unfortunate culture.