Trash, Yes, but for Many It’s the Real Deal

And her ratings are huge too. “The Anna Nicole Show,” the latest “reality TV” program, was the highest-rated show in the history of the E! network when it premiered on Aug. 4. Now, why is that?

The critics, of course, don’t love it. The New York Daily News’ David Bianculi derided it as “a train wreck--with breasts.” The Los Angeles Times’ Howard Rosenberg called Smith “less blond bombshell than shell.” The Washington Post’s Ken Ringle wrote that watching Smith’s show was “like a trip to the vomitorium.” The Dallas Morning News’ Ed Bark took the show as proof that “Western civilization has finally thrown in the towel.”

Why, oh why, are the media so outraged? After all, the pundits were kinder to an earlier reality show, “The Osbournes.” But that pseudo-sitcom crept up on the critics over the last five months; it started life in March with modest ratings, only later exploding into popular consciousness. And besides, Ozzy Osbourne is British, which is always a positive in the minds of American scribblers, who suffer from perpetual England envy. By contrast, Ms. Smith hails from Mexia, Texas; Southern whites make up the one group that it’s still politically correct to make fun of.

OK, so the show’s not for everyone. But still, why do so many people watch? What is it that the American people see in reality shows?

The answer, maybe, is that they see themselves. The contestants on “Survivor” or “Big Brother” or ABC’s forthcoming free-plastic-surgery show, “Ultimate Makeover,” may not be exactly average, but surely they are more typical than the coiffed, tanned, buffed and voice-coached would-be icons who get on TV to deliver comedy, tragedy or the news every day.

Smith, meanwhile, is an undereducated, overweight single mother, in some ways not so different from millions of Americans. But whoa, what about the bleached-blond hair and the silicone-implanted breasts?

Those are real too. Real bleach, real implants. So even on the cosmetic enhancement front, are Smith’s beauty tricks so rare anymore?

In other words, maybe “Anna Nicole” and the other reality shows are, in their own cracked fashion, a bid for truth. That was a point made by the comedian David Brenner in a recent interview.

Brenner has been a star since the early 1970s, but he was candid in acknowledging that in the ‘80s his fan base shrank as he got older. One problem was his determination to keep his act “clean”--no vulgar words.

That clean-talking policy endeared him to some folks but not enough of them, Brenner concluded, especially young ones. The younger set felt it wasn’t “honest” not to use the language of everyday life--of reality, coarse as it might be. And so, starting in 1990, Brenner started in with the salty talk, and his career bounced back.

Not everyone will applaud his decision, of course, but one should at least give him credit for knowing what works in the comedy biz.

Asked about sex in the media, Brenner had the same answer: Young audiences expect frank treatment of sex because it’s “part of real life.” OK, he was asked, what don’t young people want?

“What’s bad is hypocrisy and lying,” he answered. Such artificiality, he added, is what young people expect from television, and it’s a turnoff for them.

So if young people are rejecting the traditional media as hypocritical and untruthful, reality shows are picking up the slackers’ slack. As Broadcasting & Cable reported, “Another coup for E!: Smith’s audience is youthful.” No wonder Electronic Media reports that the News Corp. is considering an entire new 24/7 network devoted to the reality genre.

Indeed, the only competition to reality shows might be ... reality itself.

The rescue of the Pennsylvania coal miners last month made for compelling TV; Hollywooders moved right in and snapped up their life stories. And the spectacle of the two Lancaster, Calif., teens who were abducted, raped, freed--and then booked on a slew of shows--has made for its own kind of raw realness.

One need not admire such programming to respect the impulse behind it. Americans may have a turn for trash, but they have a hankering for honesty too. Anna Nicole Smith may be a big fake, but if audiences, especially the young, think she’s more real than standard network programming, old-style media face an even bigger problem than Anna Nicole’s busting out.

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James P. Pinkerton writes a column for Newsday in New York. E-mail: pinkerto@ix.netcom.com.