The one and only time (I hope) that I write about reality programming

I remember, back in 2000, a little show called "Survivor" went on the air and became a huge hit.  The supremacy of "Friends" as the most popular show on television was challenged.  They aired special extra-long episodes to compete.  Doesn't that seem like a quaint, long-ago time?

Of course, in the years since, reality programming has taken off with a vengeance.  It's difficult to remember life before the Snookis and Jon Gosselins of the world.  The genre itself has ballooned beyond all expectations. 

Here's the thing: I understand why they're entertaining.  They have the same dramas, the same villains, good guys, bad good guys, and good bad guys that any show has, but with the added tension of it all being "real."  This is where reality programming loses me.  I can't get over the way these shows are presenting reality, because it's never reality.  Dramatic angles are used, portentous music swells up, and we all know situations are set up.  And worst of all, people are encouraged to act like the lowest possible version of themselves, because they know it guarantees them further fame and fortune.  

The studios are complicit in this celebration of terrible behavior.  They know it brings in viewers.  How else to explain the way people who seem to lag behind other contestants stay on reality competitions for most of the season?  How many shows have you seen where someone who acted like a complete jerk stayed on, week after week after week?

This brings me to the little drama that has been unfolding over the course of this season of "Dancing with the Stars."  According to the official site, Bristol Palin has been at the bottom of the leaderboard for 5 consecutive weeks.  I'm not really sure what a leaderboard is, but to me, that sounds like she's been the worst dancer on a dancing competition for five weeks and is somehow still competing.  I don't mean to group her in with the aforementioned jerks.  As far as I know, this isn't one of the shows that encourages childish behavior, but her continued survival on the show does seem to indicate that something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

Only in the rarefied halls of reality programming does she qualify as a star.  She is most famous for being the underage pregnant offspring of a failed vice presidential candidate.  Can anyone name another famous offspring of a failed vice presidential candidate?  This is supposed to be an arts blog, but there are times when the political world and the entertainment world intersect, for better or for worse.  Palin was seen practicing in a Tea Party shirt, so as far as I'm concerned, she's making this fair game as a topic.

You may have noticed that the page I linked to above says that more votes were received for the last show than any previous show at that stage in the competition.  Do we really think it's because Bristol is such a fine dancer?  I think, unequivocably, the judges have indicated that no, she's not.  It doesn't take a paranoid conspiracy theorist to guess who is voting for her.

There's got to be some sense from these voters that helping her win is in some way proving their point about Tea Party values.  As someone with political views that I'll readily admit would be anathema to the average Tea Partier, I'm going to go ahead and say, that's not why her victory would aggravate me.

It's aggravating because, like so many other reality show contestants, she's being rewarded despite a demonstrable lack of skill.  I'm going to go a little further here - it goes against the very nature of the Tea Party for her to succeed.  Why are all of these Joe the Plumbers so supportive of someone who is riding in on her mother's coattails?  They claim to love small businesses, the average people, the decidedly non-elite.  Look, someday, young Bristol may take over the world.  Right now, she's the daughter of someone rich and famous and she spends her free time telling teenagers not to have sex.  

I can't change the nature of reality programming.  People aren't going to stop rubbernecking at car accidents on the highway.  What I can do is start a Facebook group, which I think the Betty White phenomenon has shown us is the single most effective way to get things done in this country.  It's called "Nobody puts Baby in a corner".  It's dedicated to helping Jennifer Grey win "Dancing with the Stars".  Jennifer is 50.  She's been in two classic movies that are still in heavy rotation on TV 25 years later.  She's been in the entertainment business since 1979. And to top it off, she's a trained dancer and has been getting high scores all season. 

Let's separate our politics and dancing competitions again.  Join the group.  Next week, vote for Jennifer Grey and prove that experience and skill are what win reality competitions, instead of high drama and red state/blue state bickering.

I have joined the 21st century

Kind of, anyway.  I created a twitter account for the blog.  It's @theMediaReader.  Feel free to follow it if your weekly dose of Media Reader is not enough.  Or if you want to watch me struggle to communicate in 140 characters or less.

5-6-7-8 ROCK

Last week, I went to two concerts.  Both of them featured a two-person band of one man and one woman, playing piano and drums.  It seems like these bands should sound similar, but in fact, they could not really be too much farther apart on the musical spectrum.  The bands were the Dresden Dolls and Matt and Kim.  For the uninitiated, here is sample one and here is sample two.

To be totally truthful, I am a person who loves music and judges people by their musical taste, yet knows virtually nothing about it.  I can't carry a tune to save my life, I play musical instruments only adequately, and I can sing along to a song for years without ever noticing what it's about.  It's with some trepidation that I'm currently trying to write about music.  But I think music occupies the same particularly intense place for many of us.  We may not be able to speak with authority about key changes or album themes, but each of us has felt that moment where a song reaches right into you and touches something primal, despite whatever else might be going on at the time.

It's the sort of thing that comes up when you're standing at a concert amidst a group of people dressed as vampires and you're wearing an Ann Taylor Loft shirt and thinking rather critically that Amanda Palmer really shouldn't need a lyrics sheet to get through this show, when you find yourself feeling, deeply and profoundly, that giving in to all of your most melodramatic impulses would probably result in a more meaningful life.

Or you may be noticing that the median age of the other concertgoers is about 18 and you start to think, am I aging out of concerts?  Will all of my concerts after this be sit-down affairs where no one yells "Woooo!" after the exciting parts?  Am I too old to even be aware of what genre of music this opening act is?  (There was a lot of sampling, yelling random phrases, frenetic dancing, and neon clothing.  The whippersnappers around me got all into it, bopping around, probably thinking things like, "This band is part of the prog rock electronica grunge movement, but their sound hasn't fully evolved yet."  I tried some mild bopping, but mostly thought depressing thoughts about when I had stopped being a whippersnapper myself.)

And then Matt and Kim came on.  If you haven't attended a Matt and Kim concert, you are missing out on some of the most exuberantly brainless fun out there.  The crowd started jumping the minute they started playing and continued with only brief pauses straight through to the end.  Afterward, my old lady knees made it very clear that that had been a terrible idea, but in the moment?  How often do you really dance like no one's watching? 

You may not be a fan of either of those bands, but now is probably a great time to listen to that one song you've heard a million times before that still always makes you pause whatever you're doing, simply to think, "Exactly.  That is exactly how I feel. "