Under the Sun
Seeking consolation in
counterfeit diversionsWHEN the world becomes too much for her, one of my friends stops paying attention. She ignores the headlines, channel-surfs past FOX and MSNBC and tunes out public radio. Ignorance becomes blissful.
I suspect that a lot of people do this once in a while. Sept. 11 and color-coded alerts have swollen our anxieties. Tragic and disturbing events -- from suburban snipers to shuttle explosions and fiery dance-club disasters -- string together roughened beads of worry. With war menacing and distress about its effects on the national economy and, closer to home, our jobs and our wallets, it's no wonder a lot of people escape to the strange comfort of so-called reality TV.
I'm not a fan of these programs because very little about them is real. OK, maybe the people who participate in the shows are sort of real. At least they aren't actors playing out a role, although from what I've read about that Joe-schmoe-bachelor-show, the guy was a backhoe operator or some such and not a millionaire, as he was billed to the babes competing for his money -- I mean, his affection.
An objective of these fake-real exhibitions is to induce people to behave badly. The more offensive and disgusting the performance, the better. I don't get it. It is not as if there aren't enough displays of selfishness and idiocy in true life. Need a good dose? Click over to broadcasts of Congress in action on C-SPAN or one of those shows where dysfunctional families holler for about 45 minutes, then heave set furniture at each other for the climax. Want smarmy and self-important? Catch Ari Fleischer tap-dancing past Helen Thomas' incisive questions during the daily non-presidential news conferences. There's a ration of harsh reality.
The irksome thing about reality shows is that the situations are way out there. What's real about a bunch of bankers and marketing executives, dressed only in dirty tank tops and thongs, conniving against one another and trying to survive in the middle of a jungle or on a desert island with only a couple of pounds of rice and a water filter? It may be that in their dog-eat-dog business worlds they must scrabble to outfox their rivals, but at the end of those engagements they can find sustenance with the slide of a credit card at the nearest Starbucks.
The appeal is that the viewer knows nothing really horrible will happen. Participants may huddle through a shivery night in a rain puddle and eat half-charred lizards to keep stomachs from rumbling, but no liability-minded television producer is going to let a person starve to death or allow a serious physical injury to go unattended. The fear is public humiliation, the risk is the million-dollar prize, not the loss of life as when soldiers ship out to battle a lunatic dictator through rugged, hostile terrain. The consequences in reality TV are controlled and the actions orchestrated. Would that a real war could be the same.
The terrorist attacks on our home field shifted the national psyche -- or so we thought. For a period, we became more thoughtful, more aware and careful of each other. Between then and now, we seemed to have lost or sidelined that one blessing we gathered from that awful experience.
Our leaders, meanwhile, have squandered the opportunity to sow the goodness of our nation made fertile through the sympathy of the world for our losses. The quest for vengeance has yielded a wasteland of conflict where reason and temperate acts may have borne fruit. Now the global scene shakes with our stomping and we search for an alternate reality to steady our nerves and forget. But the real one is still there.
Cynthia Oi has been on the staff of the Star-Bulletin for 25 years.
She can be reached at: coi@starbulletin.com.