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"simpsons, married with children, family guy, third rock, kinda guy..."
those are all good too... the simpsons has been very on and off over the last 5-6 years but it still has a few grand slam episodes once and awhile
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aw, kevin, nobody is taking u up on your reality topic! i confess that i worked (to my great horror, and subsequent fascination,) on AMERICA'S NEXT TOP MODEL.. i also edited the audition tapes for SURVIVOR and THE AMAZING RACE. i'm a freelance editor and you know, you take the jobs as they come...
the only reality i've ever remotely enjoyed watching is AMERICAN IDOL.
what's most interesting to me about reality is the formula. it pretends to be about winning, but relies on losing. the premise is always about winning something, but the big dramatic moment of each episode,the drumroll each week, is all about watching the loser lose. and the programs have done various hideous things to dramatize it. remember that island show (fantasy island was it?) the thing with the lei? the one where the loser has to walk down the boardwalk (plank)?? or on TOP MODEL how tyra banks says that the loser must "immediately return to the apartment, pack and leave." hilarious.
this (obsession/fascination with the LOSER ) to me indicates that, culturally speaking, we are in the 7th grade.
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haha, I think thats a big myth, that reality tv is low brow entertainment. I'd go as far as to say that when people look back at this time they'll consider it our best art... its unique, its new and its actually kind of telling of our times (the construction of 'reality').
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kevin, it's true that new forms tend at first to be considered low-brow, until they catch up with themselves, the people catch up, or both. every time the film industry has made a technical leap forward, (not that Reality is necessarily to be considered a leap forward, technical or otherwise,) well - 2 steps forward one step back. . . or is it one step forward, 2 steps back. that seems more like it. when they figured out sound, ("talkies") - great careers were destroyed (buster keaton, weep sob) while the industry took a long time figuring out how to do it right. same happened with the onset of color. same with tv, same with video.
Reality may have *some* of this going on, -- in fact i think, that what may happen is, it moves more towards doc. then you'd have something. meanwhile doc itself is becoming more and more viable. regular people actually go see documentaries now. didn't used to happen. maybe Reality is serving that function.. teaching ordinary americans to enjoy a more documentary form.. (doc, by far my favorite kind of editing.)
but the truth is, realty tv, as it stands right now, is extremely shlocky and annoying for the most part. yes, "low brow". it's fukcing stupid! ever notice how they use the same clips over and over.. tellyou b4 the commercial what they're gonna do after the commercial, then tell you again.. keep using the same "teaser" clips.. like the audience is 4.. and like they don't actually have miles of footage.. i don't get it. and do you deny my earlier point? about the obsession with losers? hopefully that will just be a sign of reality's infancy (if it is indeed here to stay.)
do you know how/why reality came to be? producer's reaction to a writer's strike. and think about the professional ramifications.. for actors and writers.. reality represents producers flaunting their ultimate power.. it's the big "oh yeah??! we'll do it without you!" and they did. (bcs americans will buy anything.) (no offense...) meanwhile they had looked at phil donihue.. wait no.. who's the guy who has the lowest american life-forms on his daytime talk show who then get into brawls on stage?? yeah, that $hit. they found that americans enjoyed it.. bcs they could say "hey, those ppl are more stupid than i am! i guess i'm not so stupid!"
right now there is another hybrid form of "reality" being made. i worked on one called "ultimate gamer" it's essentially a 30 min. long commercial for a video game, disguised as a reality show. pretty disturbing trend.
but this is the sort of thing that can be expected, as a result of tivo (enabling us to eliminate commercials from our lives.) now we'll just have whole shows that ARE commercials. there's no escaping it now...
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Marlboro( i think) was the first paid movie commercial on Superman...
my favorite reality TV is Nascar, and then Bull stomping er i mean Pro Bull Riding..(i root for the bulls)
anyway my favorie driver for 10-12 yrs has been Mark Martin.... he was sponsored by Valovoline Oil, but they couldn't afford his price? so VIAGRA took over ....
LOL the first race he was sponsored by them? FOX used that live computer editing thing to blank out Viagra on his in-car camera and they avoided showing the outside of his car the whole race(lucky for them he didn't win)...
a few weeks later? they had Bob Dole saying erectile dysfunction during the network evening news...we never looked back.....
-------------------- Don't envy the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise.
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My life is stranger than any reality tv I have ever seen. They could run a short show on the life of Lloyd. I would tell you about it but the truth is stranger than fiction.
-------------------- Amazing how much time we spend looking for the truth but never spend the time to get to the point.
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