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The genuine artist is never "true to life." He sees what is real, but not as we are normally aware of it. We do not go storming through life like actors in a play. Art is never real life.
-- Wallace Stevens
Wednesday, July 16, 1997
What kind of guilty pleasures do you indulge in? What do you do that no one you know likes to do? What would no one suspect you of?
Today The Real World was back for a new season on MTV. This kind of "reality" programming is something I really like, and I've been watching since the first season in 1992.
The Real World premise (for those of you who really don't watch TV, and don't just claim to not watch) takes seven strangers, young adults, and puts them together in a house for five months. They are taped in the house and followed almost everywhere they go.
When the time is over, the producers take the zillion hours of tape and edit it down and broadcast it.
Of course, the only time the subjects had no idea what they were in for was the first season. (Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone.) Later seasons have had their share of grandstanding and playing to the cameras. The people who have inhabited The Real World have become mini-celebrities. This has affected the type of people who apply to be on the show, with quite a high proportion of showbiz wannabees, actors, musicians, arty types. But they usually get a mix of types, and the residents get stereotyped quickly: The Lesbian, The Cowboy, The Arty Intellectual, The Bitch on Wheels.
It's a show I really like; I make a point of watching it. I even read (scan) the newsgroup devoted to discussing it. I checked out the website of the English guy who was on the show two years ago and had his tongue bit when performing in a rock club.
I've enjoyed various shows of this type. There is a spin-off called Road Rules that is even better in some ways. The cast members are trapped together on a road trip across the country, and can't get away from each other the way they sometimes do on The Real World. The same production company did a special covering a ten-year high school reunion which I really found fascinating.
But I don't know anyone personally who likes the show like I do. I have friends who like Babylon5 and get together to watch it. But I haven't been able to articulate the appeal of RW and get anyone else hooked.
It's like a real life soap opera, with continuing stories from week to week. There are fights, humor, shocking episodes. It's a little like reading online diaries, except far more edited (and not by the participants themselves). While the producers may have certain ideas in mind, they can't control how the cast members will interact. Sometimes people have been kicked out of the house by the rest of the cast.
It's the "real" aspect that appeals to me. For the same reason I enjoy watchine Cops sometimes. Like a car crash, I can't look away.
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