The Love of Reality

The Love of Reality

ENG 122

Instructor Heather Nielson

April 8, 2013

The Love of Reality

While reality television is the most popular type of viewing on television as it is considered entertaining, reality television shows display negative content that paints a negative picture for the viewers about people similar to the cast. The subject matter is not suitable for children and in some cases inappropriate for television, includes inappropriate language and violence between members of the cast.

Television is a popular form of entertainment for most of society. In prior years television viewers enjoyed television shows that were composed of fictional characters. Television provided us with comedies, drama, and the evening news. Comedies such as Three's Company and Happy Days included actors that were funny. Dramas such as Police Story or Dallas were shows that contained crime and families that were having problems. These shows were fiction and viewers got entertainment from watching the actors portray scenes that some were able to identify with.

In later years, television became more real with the introduction of talk shows such as Maury, Ricky Lake, and the infamous Jerry Springer. Television viewers are now entertained from watching people argue about infidelity, paternity, or a child that is uncontrollable at home. This type of entertainment was real as some people were going through the same situations at home and felt as though they could relate to these "real people" on the talk shows. Currently television has moved away from talk shows and now on almost every channel there are reality shows where everyday people that allow cameras to follow them around and record their lives. Since 2001, reality television programs topped the U.S. television ratings in 6 of the last 7 years (Hischorn, 2007) Television viewers are now more interested in watching people do everyday tasks that we do on television. As humans, we have a voyeuristic nature. "The construct of voyeurism as a common form of guilty pleasure points to several important dimensions of a typical individual's voyeuristic tendencies." (Baruh, Lemi 2009) Celebrities have caught the "reality TV" bug and now we can watch some of our favorite celebrities, their ex-wives, or celebrity couples on television. However, with the characters now being "real" and not scripted the content has become more mature and uncensored. While violence in entertainment has been positive, the mature content and aggression displayed in reality shows give no positive influence to the masses.

At any time of the day, viewers are able to tune into a reality television show that contains mature content that allows young children and our young adults the ability to view the negative content at any time. This is not acceptable because children are impressionable and the content that they view may be imitated. Because the basis of reality television is dependent on the interactions between the characters this sometimes initiates the aggressive behavior. In most reality shows, it is encouraged as the ratings excel with violent behavior. This demonstrates to our impressionable viewers that violence is "ok" or verbal abuse to others is acceptable.