Reality Bites Reality TV

So now the reality of the so-called reality TV show “Big Brother 2” is that one of its cast members, a male bartender from New Jersey, has been fired by CBS for being, well, a little too real. While kissing and embracing another cast member the other night, he suddenly talked about smashing her head in with a carpet sweeper. Then, he put a kitchen knife to her throat and discussed slashing her.

Now, this may be standard courting protocol in some New Jersey bars. It certainly didn’t seem to initially startle into action anyone at CBS monitoring the show’s ersatz real life through cameras and microphones laced throughout the sequestered set.

Producers desperate for more viewers had sought an edgier, more confrontational cast this time. Let’s see, if the same thing had happened anywhere real in America, chances are fairly good that a police hostage negotiator and real SWAT team would have appeared, maybe with a Fox TV crew in tow filming the reality police show “Cops.” Then, we wouldn’t have to switch networks to watch the deadly confrontation. And if producers seeking ratings were really lucky, there would be a real shootout with genuine body bags on coroner’s carts for filming by all the arriving local TV news crews. Think about those ratings!

Then, think again. Do we have a shortage of real-life confrontations in the world such that we need to manufacture new ones in a studio petri dish with better camera angles? Are our lives so devoid of worthy or even meaningless activities that we demand to see even sadder souls act out violently for us? How far down this road do we want to go? How about putting lions into the Big Brother house?

Humans will watch anything--executions in China and Saudi Arabia, newsless police chases in Los Angeles, motorcyclists shattering their bodies in meaningless stunt jumps, body embalmings, lions toying with dying gazelles, simulated and actual sex, veterinarians cutting open diseased pets, women in surgery for larger breasts, spouses announcing infidelities to shocked spouses, women in surgery for smaller breasts. We can see all this, even before high-definition TV delivers a clearer image.

It’s someone’s real right to broadcast it. Just as it is everyone’s real right to watch it. And not to watch it. No doubt, as individuals in a free society we can do a lot of things, especially when they are offered as easily, colorfully and temptingly as TV offers them. Maybe the real question is: Should we? And maybe now is a really good time to ask ourselves that question as individuals in that free and open society. We could write our own surprise ending for such reality TV.