If you don't think the world's gone crazy, turn on your television set practically any night of the week and look at all the ways Americans have now to make fools of themselves on national TV. Whether it's "American Idol," "Survivor," "The Biggest Loser " or "The Real Housewives of Orange County," Americans can't seem to get enough of reality TV If you doubt how much America's love affair with reality TV has changed our culture, just consider how seriously major news networks, from CNN to Fox, have treated the death of ex-Playboy playmate and yes, reality TV star, Anna Nicole Smith. You can't turn on television without another breathless report about where Smith will be buried or who fathered her child.
Enough is enough. Ordinarily, I believe in live and let live. If someone wants to make a complete fool of themselves by brutalizing a song on "American Idol" so one of the "celebrity" judges can carve them up, so be it.
But I'm concerned about the impact all this fame for fame's sake will have on our children. As the father of a 9-year-old girl, I spend more than just a little time explaining to her that just because someone is on television doesn't mean they have any worth as a human being. There's nothing new about people doing dopey things.
As one of my Sunday-school teachers used to like to say, "There's nothing new under the sun." What's changed is that in the past if somebody wanted to do something stupid, there wouldn't be such a rush to put that person on television. That's no longer true.
Now it's all about becoming famous, and it doesn't matter if you have to humiliate yourself, or show America that you're a worthless back-stabber, if it gets you famous, it's all worth it. HBO has created a wildly popular show, "Entourage," which follows the lives of a group of worthless hangers-on that follow their childhood friend, and now movie-star buddy, around Hollywood. None of his friends in the show do anything to justify their existence on the planet, but they happily go about their daily lives being suck-ups to a superstar.
In the end, it's likely that all this reality TV won't start the third World War, or melt the polar ice caps or even cause riots in the street. But it does send a not-so-subtle signal about what many Americans think is important these days. Unfortunately, it's a society where so-called style is valued over substance and fame for fame's sake is the most important thing on our minds.
News RSS