The Perversity of (Real)ity TV: A Symptom of Our Times

One cannot help but be bombarded by the plethora of so-called “reality television” that defines the contemporary American television landscape—Americas Funniest Home Videos, tabloid news, Hard Copy, A Current Affair, American Journal, America's Most Wanted, The Stories of the Highway Patrol—as well as stunt videos of every conceivable extreme sport you can name—motorcycling, skiing, skateboarding, bungee jumping, parachuting. Then there are the natural and human disaster specials, and so on. More interesting, for my argument, has been the emergence of the new reality game shows like Big Brother, Survivor, Robinson (Britain), The Mole, Love Cruise, The Amazing Race, Temptation Island, and Boot Camp. All rely on the domestication of video technology that allows camcorder shots, vigilante documentation, shock reportage, “real” voyeurism, and the obsession to present for viewers—“live”—the reality of their own streets, neighborhoods, homes, and the lives of “ordinary” people engaged in sometimes extraordinary events. The private has become public and “probic/phobic,” as if social reality has been stood on its head, inverted, its insides pulled out exposing them on the surface like the “guts” of the Centre Pompidou in Paris. The success of the low-budget film The Blair Witch Project (Daniel Myrich and Eduardo Sånchez [II], ) would have never been possible if its audience hadn't already become accustomed to accepting the new televised “look” of “reality” based on odd, “in-your-face” camera angles, jittery tracking shots, and “naturally” recorded sounds with no edits. All this so as to radically dramatize and capture the intensity and panic when “something” foreboding and pent up inside a seemingly contained and safe form (e.g., a house) suddenly erupts. Or, something unexpectedly coming from the outside disturbs the tranquility of equilibrium (e.g., a natural disaster), thereby suddenly intruding into personal