I think people take their entertainment way too seriously, especially “reality” type programming. There, I said it.
Seriously, though. People talk all the time about how heartbroken they were when such-and-such a contestant was eliminated from whatever “reality” show they were part of. They’re so bad off, they can’t stop crying.
It’s the same when a beloved character is killed off on a TV drama. Oh, the humanity!
It’s even worse when an artist of some kind actually does die, whether it be from some natural cause, an OD, or some freak accident. You’d think the world was going to stop turning.
Maybe that makes me heartless, I don’t know. I would just advise people to get over it. Just because your horse got kicked off American Idol does not mean the show is any more or less entertaining. Or true, for that matter. No one with half a mind would actually think those kind of shows are really talent contests–they aren’t. They’re about how limber the texting fingers of viewers are.
They’re popularity contests, for crying out loud. There are clearly more than one or two types of music, and who is the best in any genre is entirely subjective to preference. To that end, I would submit the preferences of adolescent girls with really quick thumbs are not quite the same as people who have gotten past puberty and into adulthood with most of their intellect intact.
Good grief, people.
And does anyone really think the contestants on the Bachelor and Bachelorette shows–having shed their last vestiges of human dignity–really expect to find anything of substance from men or women whose chief qualification for “prizehood” is an aesthetically pleasing countenance and a willingness to lock lips with a couple dozen people on camera?
Zeus’s beard!!
Having said that, I did cry like a 13 year old at a Twilight Screening when Colton got eliminated.
I’m such a hypocrite.
So if these shows are our reality, what is our fantasy?
A Work in Progress 