How reality TV gave us reality candidate Donald Trump

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

I've been lamenting the negative influence of "reality" tv for years, and I believe Howard Stern deserves some of the blame as well. My exposure to both come from time spent with my (otherwise) very liberal sister who claims watching these awful people makes her feel better about herself. She's always rejected my fear that the shows were normalizing, even glorifying very bad behavior.

In purporting to show us ourselves as we actually are, reality TV began (unwittingly) to turn us against one another. In nearly 30 years worth of “Cops” episodes, the TV audience came to understand that the minority and/or low-income motorist, who has always just been thrown to the ground by two or three police officers, is, at the very least, in violation of one law or another (no vehicle registration, a broken taillight) and — looky here — carrying just enough drugs to bring serious trouble. The messier the house (the apartment, the trailer), the more likely the handcuffs.

From there, reality TV began to confirm one subliminal prejudice after another. The young-adult occupants of MTV’s primordial “Real World” lofts and beach houses were the first to exploit the flammability of racial and class conflict in their midst, learning to dislike one another as types. They were encouraged to argue about it, encouraged to storm out of the room about it, encouraged to insist that someone has to go because of it. Reality TV sorted its stereotypes into eventual archetypes: the Angry Black Woman, the Bigoted Southerner, the Insecure White Man. The Schemers, the Punks, the Princesses, the Preening Adonises.

Full WaPo story here.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

1. NOT. Donald J tRump is the UNreality candidate. (But we get your point & thx for posting) . . nt

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

2. Ha! He is, but it seems "reality" shows are no more real than Trump.

They just use "real people" to play out their designed, often scripted, shameless, low brow melodrama.

Sadly, these tv personalities became celebrities, which fueled the drive of desperate attention whores who will do anything to be on tv and hopefully gain similar fame and fortune. Or, even the presidency.

[pretzel4gore]

3. who benefits? (from the way things are)

certainly not the poor and powerless, and it's the poor/powerless who are giving Trump campaign whatever fizz there is....
there's a dis-ease in the world; has been gaining strength since end of WW2, and it cannot be explained by someone so obviously bored by bother, like the Donald. Years ago, someone here pointed out to the fascasti (see nixon, regan, bush, ollie north, kissinger, cbs, nbc, pbs tvo, cia, kkk 'the view' etc etc) that 'They win by LOSING, and LOSE by WINNING!
They WON

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

4. In a way, it's the same old same old...

the Robber Barons rise again. The difference is, their demise seems so unlikely now due to the massive RW propaganda machine convincing the poor/powerless that other poor/powerless people are their enemies, not the Robber Barons.

I know there was something like this with many of the major papers owned by the 1% or their surrogates, but their control seems more extensive now.

I must admit, I'm not sure I get the 'They win by LOSING, and LOSE by WINNING!'
part. Can you elaborate?

[pretzel4gore]

7. just for you....

my idea is more of a spiritual nag then political strategic....over the long term, the basic depravity of too much human interchange becomes truly embarrassing (for ex. the thought of millions of baby bison crying over their slaughtered mamas in square miles of carrion- a nasty job necessary to destroy the Plains etc Indian economic system) is almost impossible to think off, yet it happened and an entire generation; certainly of 1st nations survivors, were rendered speechless by it, so much so you rarely see it mentioned!) The rightwing start with solid premise- ie: people should be responsible for what they do, but rightwingers intentionally overrlook the fact there are lotsa kids, elderly and mentally challenged etc, and the heavy burden make worse a bad situ for OUR PEOPLE, which the righhtwing blames on our stupidity an laziness etc. Thus, when they win (regards legislation, tax cuts etc) a bad situ worsens, requiring bigger taxes to offset, so they secretly scheme to lose, only some of them nutcakes think Obama has did such good job, we can go back to Bankster Rule re pre 2008!
And we can't, not yet.

[Zing Zing Zingbah]

5. I've always disliked reality tv shows

I don't watch any of them.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

6. I have actually watched a few.

I used to be a seamstress and so was interested in whatever that one with Tim Gunn and the fashion designers was. But, I hated a few things about it, especially the obvious ways they tried to instigate drama.

I've enjoyed the "Up" series, British Granada TV's documentary films following the lives of a disparate group of British children every seven years starting 1964, when they were seven years old. Interesting sociologically, and less bent on melodrama than most reality tv.

It's the ones, most of them I guess, that seem to revel in rude, crude behavior, or that suggest the only way to motivate people is to scream at and belittle them, that I think have normalized and encouraged bad behavior.