Reality Shows Fill an Urge to Cut Others Down to Size

“We like to watch,” declares the cover of Time magazine about America’s sudden obsession with voyeuristic series such as “Survivor,” “The 1900 House” and “The Real World.” But that isn’t the true lure in these shows or other “reality” events such as the Miss America pageant or “Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire?” It isn’t voyeurism, feminine pulchritude or wedding envy that holds us rapt. Not even close.

We like to judge. That’s what we like, big time.

Nobody watches these shows. We are these shows. They’re audience-participation events, best viewed en masse. Why are people holding “Survivor” parties? So they can dish and dump on the contestants. He’s annoying. She’s lazy. What a jerk. Such a princess. Did you pick Darva in that millionaire-marriage tournament? What about the brown-haired girl? Ooh, she’s trashy-looking. But that one’s too eager. And yuck, look at the groom!

Cluck. Cluck. Cluck. We’re a nation of old biddies, sizing up and dressing down the young’uns for their new-fashioned senses of behavior, fashion and morality. We’re the Salem witch hunters and the McCarthy Red baiters, stalking evil prey with a vengeance. We assess with righteous clarity, swiftly assigning blame. And, boy, do we get off on it.

Take a look at all those morning “talk” shows. “Maury” parades 13-year-old sexpots across the stage, their moms weeping tales of woe. The girls strut and gloat; the studio audience boos. A “drill sergeant” arrives to scream ‘em straight at “boot camp”; the audience cheers. The girls swear to change their ways. The audience applauds. We’re not mere viewers at home either. We’re eternally estimating: Listen to the mouth on her. Where did she learn that? This mother’s a piece of work. Who do you think the father of her baby is? DNA test! Ooh, it’s not him. Hey, it’s not him either! What a loser. So how many guys has she slept with? Lie detector test! So what makes these people go on these shows, anyway?

“Jerry Springer” doesn’t even pretend its people are real--they’re practically a revolving repertory company, and they reuse all the plots, sometimes even the same dialogue--but we don’t care. It’s still the Colosseum, and these are moral matches staged for our amusement, among combatants we are all comfortably better than, and therefore smug in judging from the self-satisfaction of our ethical nobility.

Sometimes we appoint a video surrogate, and not just Jerry offering his closing homily, the TV equivalent of a Cecil B. DeMille Bible movie in which we get to enjoy everybody sinning for 2 1/2 hours before God smites them in the last 10 minutes to make it an estimable undertaking. Who are Judge Judy and Dr. Laura, anyway, except surrogate lecturers for us, our representatives as moral magistrate, giving ‘em the what-for? Thumbs-up, thumbs-down, do-what-I-tell-you-to gratification.

“Survivor” ups the ante in a fascinating way, providing actual quantifiable results of peer judgment. You’re voted out; now depart our society immediately. It isn’t just Jerry or Judy doing the clucking from on high. It’s democracy in action! A virtual video death penalty for a society that can’t wait to exercise lethal punishment in real life.

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With “Survivor,” we all live in Texas, and we fry the folks we judge unworthy to share our superior company. Only these exiles get a consolation-prize talk-show tour as a shot at redemption. And we get to assess their temperament all over again! We win twice!

It gets even better this week. CBS is following up “Survivor” with “Big Brother,” an even more participatory exercise in which we get to eject contestants by phone vote. “Survivor’s” form of representation becomes true democracy in action. (Oops, I accidentally typed “democrazy” there first. Freudian slip?) And the nightly news becomes C-SPAN. “Survivor” ruthlessly edits its island proceedings for drama, but “Big Brother” will run nonstop over the Internet, its California housebound isolatees watched 24/7 by Webcams. (See details at https://www.cbs.com/network/tvshows/mini/bigbrother.) We won’t have to wait for weekly TV dispatches to judge its subjects, though CBS will thoughtfully broadcast four half-hour reports each week for freedom of assembly and party purposes. The premiere is oh-so-handily scheduled to follow “Survivor” on Wednesday.

It’s a veritable righteous rally that night. You should be able to hear the tongue-clucking and finger-wagging roll across the nation by time zone, possibly even from space. Hope there’s a space shuttle up there to let us know what we really look like.