It’s Here to Stay: The Bad, Ugly, and Some Good
by Nsenga Burton
In 1961, the newly appointed F.C.C. chairman, Newton Minow stated that television was a “vast wasteland.” In what has become a landmark speech of the 20th century, Minow lamented the state of television, which had veered away from serving “the public interest.” If he was disappointed then, what must he think now, especially with the rise of reality programming A lot of reality television is salacious, exploitative and celebratory of violent, abusive and predatory behavior “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo” and “Love and Hip Hop” immediately come to mind.
These days it seems that anything can pass for entertainment, from folks getting parking tickets, to wealthy “housewives” (who aren’t really that wealthy) drinking too much, to “basketball wives” (some of whom aren’t wives) going on shopping sprees. Some shows even feature celebrities wishing to pursue love, although what is more readily apparent is their wish to pursue a second chance at fame.
To keep it real, there isn’t much reality in many reality shows.
The surplus of reality television is not perplexing or deep it’s simple economics. Most reality programming is cheap to produce and yields maximum ratings that can be leveraged to the hilt with advertising agencies. Sorry if you hate the genre but it is not going anywhere. Brace yourself for more exploitation of ethnic groups, children, women and people of color.
As long as audiences continue to tune in networks will continue to offer reality television as entertainment. To be fair, there is good reality programming out there — “The Amazing Race” (CBS) or “Unsung” (TV One) are examples that lead me back to Minow’s 1961 diatribe At one point he said When television is good . . . nothing is better. But when television is bad, nothing is worse
