Reality TV is a fascinating concept for me because it’s anything but real. Point a camera at people and they immediately start doing the weirdest things and acting COMPLETELY different from who they really are.
I’ve stared down the business end of a camera lens before and lemme tell you, the first thing that happens is your IQ drops into the single digit category and before you know it, you become one of those retards on TV that everyone likes to point and laugh at.
So I guess I have some sympathy for these so called ‘ordinary’ people who get put on screen in reality TV shows, but not much, because in the end of the day, it’s your choice whether or not you want to appear on these shows and as such, you should be held accountable for everything you do and say whilst in front of the camera.
Last night J-Rab and I curled up on the couch to watch the new reality TV show that’s replaced The Amazing Race (we don’t have satellite), which is called Momma’s Boys and all I can say is I would have preferred to spend that hour removing my molars with a pair of pliers.
The premise is simple, fill a beautiful luxury mansion with 32 single women between the ages of about 20 and 35, then make them all compete against one another for the affections of 3 single men in their mid 20s, all of whom have the personality and intelligence of a wet dish rag.
Fair enough – so far what we basically have is The Bachelor, only instead of their being one man all the women are after, there are three.
BUT there’s a twist! Three other people are along for the ride too, the men’s (boy’s?) mothers, who move into the mansion with all the girls and dispense their almighty judgement upon every woman there, because mommy knows best and there’s no way mommy will let her baby boy get together with just any little tramp.
Obviously to make the show work, the producers have managed to find the three most pathetic examples of mommy-dominated men America has to offer, whilst still making sure the men are at least physically attractive, which is true for at least two out of the three contestants. However, of those two, I’m convinced one is a closet homo.
They sure know how to pick ‘em.
To make matters worse, mommy no. 3 is possibly the most bigoted person I’ve ever seen on TV. In her interview tape at the beginning of the show she says straight up that she doesn’t want her son to date a black girl, an asian girl, or any other girl that’s not white, a jewish girl, a girl with a fat ass or a girl that doesn’t obey mommy unquestioningly.
Of course, half the girls in the mansion are non-white and when they show them this video clip before the mommies move in, they are justifiably outraged.
I mean for fuck’s sake?! You call South Africans racist? If you had to put a white, female South African in front of a camera and have her say that shit and then show it on prime time TV, she’d be tarred and feathered FOR LIFE.
The local media would crucify the bitch. She’d be left with no choice except to leave the country and go the fuck somewhere else, possibly the deep south to live in a trailer park the rest of her life.
I just don’t think it’s necessary to show that crap on TV. I don’t think it enriches the people watching it in any way and if anything panders to our most base desires to watch people basically behaving like animals.
Predictably, when this particular mommy enters the mansion, it isn’t long before she gets into a conversation with a black women that rapidly spirals out of control.
The black women works with the US Military medics in Iraq and in my opinion is clearly suffering from the early signs of PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) which could account for why she decides to confront Mrs B (the bigot) and quickly becomes furious at the women’s blatantly racist views.
And all across TV land, people cheer and jump for joy as the conflict reaches a climax and the black women throws her glass of wine on the floor while other girls steer the bigot away as she swears at the black girl over her shoulder.
Is this what things have come to? How is this fucking helping anyone? How?!
The thing that gets to me the most though is that I sat through that fucking show, every minute of it, and I’ll probably do it again next week and the week after, and so that makes me no better than the rest of the morons in TV land.
Lead us not into temptation, and deliver us from TV…
-ST
