We've regressed as a human race, haven't we?
Reality television is almost as exploitive as gladiatorial sports were centuries ago.
We haven't quite made it into a blood sport yet, but at least the Romans didn't videotape demonstrations of such abhorrent human behavior.
"The Moment of Truth," which debuted on FOX in January, puts people through real-life lie detector tests to reveal their deepest secrets. The couples who answer the most correctly can win up to $500,000.
Of course the producers keep probing until they uncover marital infidelities or certain other proclivities the contestants would rather keep hidden.
Eventually they'll find a guy who will admit to beating his wife, or being into lewd sexual acts. Heck, I don't write the scripts - anything can happen, right? That's the beauty of reality television, and it's supposed to entertain us.
I don't really know who we can blame for this whole mess.
Maybe blame studio execs who keep finding new garbage to put on TV, and each reality show has to top the last in its depravity.
Blame contestants of reality TV, including the has-been celebs - I'm talking to you, Danny Bonaduce - who are willing to debase themselves for cash and attention.
Or we can blame ourselves for watching. As much as I complain about this, I'm free to run away from the television just like anyone else. We watch "The Moment of Truth" for the entertainment, yes, but we mostly watch it to judge those miscreants who are exposed on the show in order to feel better about ourselves.
If I'm stuck at home on a Friday night, and I need a boost of self-esteem, VH1 will give it to me. I may be lonely, I may be pathetic, but New York and her pathetic band of bachelors will be certain to lower the bar.
Recently I was watching "The Running Man," one of those classic B-movies that are still being shown on cable at 3 a.m..
In "The Running Man," which was an 80s film starring
Arnold Schwarzenegger, the story centered around a violent reality show in the future. A bunch of people were being filmed fighting to the death and one of the contestants (Schwarzenegger) killed them all. The end.
I'm not saying the real future will have such bad special effects or hammy acting, but the whole thing is not out of the question.
You can already find reality shows anywhere just by flipping through the channels, partly because of the recent writers' strike and partly because viewers have shown the ability to stomach a lot of crap.
Not to get too Orwellian with this, but it wouldn't take a lot for "The Running Man" to become reality. Neo-cons would have to get a little more neglectful of human rights to offer human beings to producers for sacrifice.
And it would also take a producer foolish enough to film it and a studio greedy enough to profit from it, both of which are possible.
It's not as if we need more of the same formulaic scripted television. Sitcom is of course short for "situational comedy" and tell me how many times you've seen this situation play out on top of a laugh track: stupid boob of a husband marries bitchy hot wife who is too good for him, while hilarity ensues.
Cable news stations will claw around for stories until they find one, and then strangle it to death.
But unlike "The Moment of Truth," that stuff at least won't leave a film of dirt on my skin that just won't come off.
Graham Beckwith is The Lantern's Arts & Life editor. He can be reached at beckwith.29@osu.edu.
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