Is reality TV all that bad?

Fulminating politicians have questioned the propriety of 'reality television' in Parliament last week, which I think is both puerile and preposterous. Hollow moral outrage can create a lot of noise but make no sense.

Too much has already been said, written, and also seen about how many of these worthies behave even in the sanctum sanctorum of our democracy to repeat here. Moreover, since Lok Sabha debates are now covered 'live', they, too, are part of the 'reality TV' syndrome, so which shoe fits which foot is the question.

Somewhere in the debate, I also think the trees are being mistaken for the woods. The real issue is not whether censorship is the answer to such shows, but whether censorship can be effective in a world where technology is breaching new frontiers of communication every passing day.

Just like the invention of the wheel changed the way the human species would live on this planet centuries ago, so has the internet. So much of everything is now available — largely free and in real time — with a click of the mouse that clamping down on the more conventional platforms which disseminate such information seems like a futile exercise.

By this, I am not advocating overarching permissiveness to what can be written and shown in society; and in this, 'nudity', 'vulgarity', and 'immorality' are not the only troubling issues, though these are commonly bandied reasons for invoking censorship. For instance, incendiary speeches which promote communal disharmony should be censored officially because the grim consequences of these are too well known — apart, of course, from being against the law.

Just how much of a damaging influence is a reality show where people come and face the 'truth' is too subjective an issue to be decided ad hoc, even by people's representatives. Moreover, it is not illegal and if it represents a growing trend in popular culture, the prudent path would be to understand the trend and address it accordingly.

Personally, I am not a great fan of reality TV (sportscasts, hard news, natural history, and the occasional quiz show apart) but I am intrigued by the growing demand for it. The manic Warholian quest for getting 15 seconds of fame — whether it is grandmothers dancing and weeping with their grandchildren, a starlet trying to find a groom for herself, or sundry others trying to find some easy bucks in trying to confront their own truths — can be occasionally riveting.

"Television thrives on unreason and unreason thrives on television, it strikes at the emotions rather than the intellect," wrote the renowned British broadcaster Robin Day, and this is exemplified as much by reality television in its popular format as its flip side, the ubiquitous soaps which dish out tripe for days on end.

In his widely accaliamed article, `Behind the Curtain of TV Voyeurism, journalist and author Neal Gabler suggests that at the core of this 'entertainment' is conflict — whether internal or external — in the protagonist. If this is not intrinsic to the script or the format, it is provoked because otherwise the show cannot hold viewer interest. This is not so much a function of effective programming as of human nature.

Reality shows depend on the inherent voyeuristic instinct of the viewer who derives both solace and power from being able to judge the subject in his/her most vulnerable. The remote has added considerably to this sense of power, because viewers are now not only judgmental of what they see, but can also decide who stays on a show and who goes out.

But this is not a cul-de-sac, as it were. By the same token, the remote also empowers viewers in several other ways. There is good television and there is bad television, and truth be told, the remote provides complete scope to choose between the two.