Column:

Reality TV's extremity its downfall

It's time to take a look at what we're watching.

By Lindsay Eanet

Published Sept. 4, 2009

I was catching up with an old friend the other night and she alerted me to a fascinating development: a student group at MU devoted entirely to discussing the hit television drama "Lost." It was then we decided to start our own student organization whose sole mission is to discuss bad reality television. Think of the philosophical we would wax — intense discussions about which "Real World" cast members were our favorites or sociological undercurrents of the "Real Housewives" series.

And this week, we'd have quite a lot to talk about.

As the rest of the nation mourned the loss of Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., Las Vegas' Palms Hotel and Casino shut its neon lights to grieve for a recently deceased member of its family, troubled turntablist Adam Goldstein, better known as DJ AM, a man brilliant at his craft and someone who helped advance the idea of the club DJ as artist.

In a heartbreakingly ironic twist of fate, Goldstein's death by what is believed to be an accidental drug overdose came just shortly after he finished filming a reality show for MTV called "Gone Too Far," where he played mediator for teens battling drug addictions.

Unfortunately, Goldstein's death was not the first recent casualty connected to the MTV Networks reality-programming lineup. Ryan Jenkins, a participant in "Megan Wants A Millionaire" and "I Love Money 3," dating shows from Viacom affiliate VH1, committed suicide last week after accusations that he killed his ex-wife.

Although Goldstein's death might not have a clear link to the show, his struggles with drug addiction were no mystery and constantly being filmed and in the public eye couldn't exactly be helping.

But the connection between Jenkins's acts and his participation on the shows is a lot clearer, enough that VH1 President Tom Calderone pulled both shows and told the Los Angeles Times, "This wasn't what I signed up for."

Of course he did.

National Public Radio's Linda Holmes put it best on her blog, Monkey See: "Suggesting that you figured it was just fine to populate your network with moderately crazy booze-hounds because you did everything possible to nullify the risk that this would associate you with violently crazy booze-hounds is, not to put too fine a point on it, rank hypocrisy."

Producers for these shows know exactly what they're doing. Pairing troubled, exposure-hungry celebs and pseudo-celebs with volatile situations and exposure to substances will inevitably bring out the worst in humanity (Oh, and did I mention the reinforcement of black and gay stereotypes and degradation of women? No?), and if the last week has taught us anything, it's been taken too far.

And when this genre of drama-and-excess-driven programming isn't ruining lives or causing relapses, it's giving extremely unsavory people license to continue their unsavory behavior. Take, for instance, the now-defunct "Divorced Dads Club" which was set to star Jon Gosselin, Kevin Federline and Michael Lohan -- a lineup one Mahmoud Ahmadinejad short of being a summit of the World's Biggest Petulant D-Bags. By giving them more exposure instead of expressing disdain, this behavior is only reinforced (also, this show's existence probably would have summoned the Anti-Christ).

So where do we fit into all of this? Last semester, MU got visits from "Real World" producers and the "Rock of Love" bus, enterprises seeking explosive, attention-mongering personalities to exploit on TV. We're not only the target audience, but also the target candidate pool for most of these shows.

And it might be entertaining, but this vicious cycle of bringing out the worst in humanity in the name of sating our demographic just isn't worth it. When divorces, relapses and body counts skyrocket, not only does the public need to reevaluate this style of programming, but also our own values as viewers and consumers need re-examining.