Respect Authority

"Next stop: Judge Judy."

Balloon Boy is ruining reality television.

Just one week ago the world seemed apathetically at ease with what’s easily become the most popular (or at least most predominant) genre of television. Shows like Big Brother and Survivor, which years ago paved the way for reality TV amid much controversy, now seem tame when pitted against even more low-brow fare like Bad Girls Club and Dance Your Ass Off. The barrier to entry has gotten undeniably lower. Shows used to require elaborate set-ups involving obstacle courses, cash prizes and the eating of bugs; these days all you need is a foul mouth, or fourteen children.

So when six-year-old Falcon Heene duped the nation last week, reportedly at the behest of his fame-seeking crazy person of a father, critics were quick to condemn reality TV for perpetuating these kinds of stunts, and bringing about the worst in human nature. In other words, it’s not entirely Papa Heene’s fault. Can he truly be blamed for tricking the authorities, and the viewing public, into believing his son was trapped in a giant UFO-like helium balloon? Well gee golly, certainly not, considering the effect these sorts of lowest-common-denominator programs have had on the human psyche.

It’s precisely this sort of retarded—that’s a scientific choice of words, retarded—thinking that absolves countless people from responsibility because of ideas “society” has put in their heads. Fame, all fifteen minutes of it, existed long before Donald Trump started hiring apprentices, or Jon and Kate had 900 kids. And people have long aspired to stardom; otherwise the entire entertainment industry would be phenomenally boring. Read More ›

This is a list I found written haphazardly into a “Memo” on my Blackberry. Chances I was high when I wrote it? A million percent.

THINGS REALITY TELEVISION HAS TAUGHT ME WILL NEVER HAPPEN:

1. Diddy will make a successful band.
2. Bret Michaels will find love.
3. Tila Tequila will decide between boys and girls.
4. The Real World will find something socially unacceptable enough to cause 1990’s-level drama in the 21st century.
5. People with more than five children will live happily ever after.
6. Obese people will lose weight without participating in televised weight-loss competitions.
7. Heidi and Spencer will disappear.
8. There will be something that no one is willing to do on TV.

Have you ever wondered what reality TV might look like if the entire population of our country played way too much Resident Evil? I’ve suddenly found new faith in the tired genre, and as usual, these groundbreaking heights of innovation have come from that neon alternate dimension floating in the Pacific Ocean, Japan.

This basically highlights the main difference between our two cultures — while we ‘Merkans are comfortable with our Coors Lights and watching pseudocelebrity princesses of vapidity fight over who has the coolest pair of high heels, the Japanese aspire to something greater, something more admirable… and that is, naturally, killing zombies with Tabasco sauce and plastic swords.

And so I worry for our mediocre TV culture and its 47 incarnations of The Real World. Will we ever be ready to submit our children to potential cases of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in the name of comedy? Will we ever greet the day when we, as a country, can trick toddlers into fighting for their lives, watch it all, and laugh? For too long have we allowed our own economy to be the enemy, all the while losing sight of what terror really means: the stumbling, brain-eating undead courteously sending you a letter informing you that they will be breaking into your house.

Of course, if the living dead ever made it into VH1’s reality line-up, it’d probably resemble something more like a necrophiliac dating show hosted by Rob Zombie, possibly titled Night of the Loving Dead. And to think we call Japanese television weird.