Unfortunately, It's Reality TV

Strange Love, once the abbreviated moniker of a Stanley Kubrick film starring Peter Sellers, now, sadly, refers to a new reality show on VH-1 starring the exploits of Flava-Flav and Briggite Nielson, the weirdest couple in celebrity history since Herve Villechaize and Farrah Fawcett hooked up for one night of drunken coke-sex in the 70's at Hef's. Flava-Flav, the 5'8 former Black Panther-esque head of "Public Enemy," found himself on a reality show called "The Surreal Life," which piled a bunch of C-list celebs in a house together. One of the other celebs was Brigitte Nielson, the 6'2 platinum blonde freak whose sole claim to fame is being another of Sylvester Stallone cast-offs.

Just bizarre.

In other plastic-people news out of Hollywood, Jessica Simpson will be portraying Daisy Duke in the upcoming Dukes of Hazzard movie, opposite Sean William Scott ("Stiffler" of American Pie fame) and Burt Reynolds as Boss Hogg.

Not to question the entertainment gurus on the other coast, but: WTF? Is creativity at such an all-time low that Reality TV and rehashing 70's TV qualify as worthwhile entertainment? The Beverly Hillbillies and The Brady Bunch were remade for the large screen (with clearly disastrous results) awhile back, so a complete dearth of creativity and an even more incredible lack of intelligence is not exclusive to the current crop of tv/movie green-lighters. And on occasion, some shit does stick to the wall. The Osbournes became a breakout hit and was genuinely entertaining, mostly due to the fact that no one could understand Ozzy's miscellaneous ramblings as he took out the trash; did we need to be treated, however, to an insider's version of Anna Nicole Smith's dazzling, incredibly vapid existence? How about the upcoming reality show featuring the aforementioned Farrah Fawcett? She can't handle being lucid for six and a half minutes on Letterman; what makes anyone think following her in reality will be anything reminiscent of entertaining? I would hope that whoever thought it would be a good idea to give John McEnroe his own talk show was the individual who thought it would be a good idea to follow Farrah around with a camera for awhile. "Just to see what happens."

WTF?

Entertainment planning and brainstorming by committee must be failing, because I find it harder and harder to find anything worth a half-hour of my time on television -- despite having 600 channels of shit on the TV to choose from (to paraphrase Pink Floyd). Will & Grace is a decent show, but it suffers from Ellendegeneresism -- every episode seems like it has to feature some sort of homosexual sub-plot or overtone of some sort, and -- funny or not -- it smells like leftovers. Note to Hollywood: when it's here and there it's funny; when it's constant, it's not. Despite that minor quibble, however, I'd say W&G is worth a half-hour in my weekly slot. Another worthy waste of time is Queer Eye for the Straight Guy -- definitely worthwhile here and there, entertaining and a marginal member of the Reality TV universe. I think it really works in part because the "action" involves quick cuts and lots of different angles to satisfy viewers in the USA of ADD. That, and it gives the viewer a chance to say "Ohmygod, that guy's apartment is worse than mine!" They've sought the pity-viewer. And they've found them.

Beyond categorization is the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Search. Here's a cavalcade of aspiring women with no intelligence but perky hooters looking to compete to be an officially-recognized empty head. Tape those boobs in, here comes camera 2. Third prize is a job offer from Hooters in Cuyahoga Falls (assuming the third-prize winner can spell Cuyahoga).

Is this what we find entertaining? Is this what we aspire to? God help us.

I think what sets the project-planners behind these incredible visions of stupidity is their lack of creativity and their assumption that no matter what is broadcast, it will be watched and absorbed. The thing that strikes me about Reality TV is people who find it entertaining are doing so at the expense of their own lives; it's sort of like encountering a voice-mail menu offering you two options. Option 1 is doing something productive and pro-active, like spending time with friends, reading, writing or being creative; option 2 is sitting in front of a television watching other people doing something pro-active. Is there intrinsic value in the sit-com? Probably not, unless it's a rerun of the Bill Cosby Show, which has some nugget of morality tucked away between minutes 21 and 22. It seems, however, that staring at a non-moving box featuring pretty, colorful images is masturbatory and wasteful. Having a TV on in the background of one's life is one thing; spending one's life in the background of TV is increasingly the norm and even more disappointing.

Um, I don't mean to, like, cut this short, but I have to go watch the stuff I Tivo'd last night. If I get a chance, I'll come back and finish it up. Like, during a commercial.

Edited 1/9: After I got a few "Why didn't you include...?" e-mails and one phone call from someone begging the question "Were you writing that about meeeee?" I opted to make one small change: I forgot, erroneously, to include Law & Order in all its forms that is broadcast and/or re-broadcast on NBC, TNT and elsewhere -- that's quality and something which I omitted not because it was on the fence but because it's more entertaining than TV should be. And The Sopranos is another show that falls into that category but escaped original mention because of its sporadic schedule and the fact that it really is a weekly one-hour movie rather than merely a television "show." Sorry for the omissions. -B-