In 1997 a man had an idea. This man decided that what human beings enjoyed more than anything was looking at stuff, and the stuff human beings liked looking at most of all was rubbish. I would like to say that this man was an idiot, but it turns out he was right.
Now, 13 years after the man read a book by Orwell and decided to establish his new intellectual depth succinctly in the form of a programme title: the idiot box abounds with the gracefulness of dogs, hilarity of childbirth and amazing vocal range of Scottish spinsters. First off, the term ‘reality television’ is almost certainly a misnomer. Aside from the fact that scenes are often reshot for dramatic purposes, the only parallel to 14 empathically-deficient schizophrenics sitting in the same room for three months in the real world is a drug rehabilitation centre. Almost-reality television might not be bad enough to require a stroppy magazine article if it had not fulfilled the two conditions for pure evil: reducing the quality of the human race, and making them like it. Reality television is almost certainly what we could have expected if the Nazis had won (yes, I’m going with Nazis) – achingly terrible morons prancing before a panel of bacon-faced monsters armed with buzzers. If we’re not watching Nazi’s Got Talent or Strictly Come Stormtrooper we’re being cranially abused by the amazing irony of idiots sitting on sofas watching idiots sitting on sofas.
We are (probably) existentially at risk of full mental shutdown if any bigshot producer ever decided to spice things up a bit by giving the inmates a television. Maybe we deserve it; despite the cancellation of Big Brother, the outlook is bleak, as even the BBC is currently dedicated to showing Gollum preen over an endless sea of barely-disguised strippers searching for a brain. Reality television is a blight on society. It reaches into the human condition and paints slow-drying Dulux on the insides of our corneas. Now, stop reading this and go and watch that new amazing social experiment airing on some channel somewhere – Orwell Spinning In His Grave I think it’s called.
Gary Barratt
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