Just posted some thoughts about reality TV on the group blog. An increasingly common and popular television programme format, this will certainly feature in our final project. Now, generally speaking, day-to-day reality can be fairly mundane. Which is why producers go for exotic, expensive-looking settings, will engineer scenes and situations for dramatic effect. But then, of course, it is no longer "reality" in the true sense of the word. And we know this. We're not stupid, and many programmes now put a disclaimer up before or after the show to inform people that what they're seeing may be a somewhat dramatised version of events. Yet we continue to watch. Why? Escapism from our own lives perhaps? Or just sheer boredom. Who knows?
It would be easy for me to completely write off all reality TV shows as a pointless, waste of time. However, it's never quite that simple. I've posted an article on the group blog about "De Grote Donorshow" (or The Big Donor Show to those who don't speak Dutch). I urge you to have a look. In the article I posted here about David Blaine a while back, I criticised him for having a worldwide platform and not using that to make any real statement. But De Grote Donorshow used the controversey surrounding it to raise two very important issues. One: a show about a dying woman selecting (from three other dying people) who will recieve her kidneys when she dies will, despite some attempts to ban it, gain an audience. And two: thousands of people die every year waiting for organ transplants because not enough people sign up as donors. Both of these things are, how can I put this...fucked up. But it seems that the show did make a difference, at least to the second point, so give it a read.
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