No Reality In "Reality TV"

The very phrase "reality television" is an oxymoronic self-contradicting misnomer.

Whether it's castaways starving on an island, or neurotic narcissists trapped in a hideous house, or amateur entertainers who'd be thrown out of the senior center follies, the circumstances surrounding these shows are the absolute height of phoniness.

For instance, a dozen people are given a bushel of kumquats and a subscription to PEOPLE magazine on which to subsist for six weeks. Meanwhile, just out of camera range, a huge crew of union technicians is gobbling down corned beef sandwiches and chugging cold beer. I can guarantee that if I were one of the female contestants, I'd be living the high life by trading my sunburnt, grimy, bug-bitten body for access to the craft table buffet. Now THAT'S reality!

And as for the entertainment competition, can anybody tell me what's so "realistic" about Adam Lambert? Black fingernails, twenty earrings, enough eye makeup for a chorus line, hair plastered into a glossy helmet - there's nothing but fakery on top of subterfuge with this guy!

And what about Susan Boyle? They didn't find this woman, they manufactured her like the Bride of Frankenstein (probably in the same laboratory where they built Adam Lambert). They installed Barbra Streisand's larynx in Susan's dowdy, cybernetic bosom, and the reason Susan had a mental collapse was over fear she'd be discovered to be a robot, and a gay one at that.

And what on earth defines any of these activities as "real" anyway? If you got stuck in the jungle with no food, you'd die! And nobody would pay you for it. If you went into a club and inflicted your miserable, screechy "vocal stylings" on the patrons, you'd be stomped to death with boogie shoes or perhaps combat boots. And if you sat around scarfing down live scorpions like popcorn, you'd just wind up in the nuthouse. No paycheck there!

Let's be honest. The only reality in television is in professionally-produced programming, where REAL actors attempt to portray REAL characters through REALLY bad writing. And if it's a live broadcast you'll witness REAL fluffs and stumbles while watching a REAL fly walk around on a REAL nose while its owner (the nose) tries desperately to focus on his lines. And if he doesn't do a REAL good job and show fails to get REAL high ratings, then it'll be cancelled and the actors will be living in REALLY substandard housing and maybe eating bugs for REAL.

No, I much prefer the REAL world of actors and directors and people who know what they're doing. Sure, they shove the same ol' bushwah down your throat again and again but at least you know it's quality bushwah. UNION bushwah!

And there's nobody sitting around munching on chocolate-covered tarantulas.