question of the day: Does it matter if “reality TV” is fake?
Does actual authenticity matter more with some reality shows, such as House Hunters, which was recently outed as fake, than others, like Jersey Shore?
reality TV
question of the day: What makes a movie star a movie star, and has this changed over the Hollywood century?
Dave Beauchene at PopTometry suggests that movie stars should only be movie stars if there can be unanimous agreement on their objectively superior talent. What’s more, this was once true, and has been lost. I couldn’t disagree more.
sign of the apocalypse No 1: the threatening Courtney Stodden/Doug Hutchinson reality show
I have been avoiding this whole Courtney Stodden/Doug Hutchinson thing — and when I say avoiding, I mean “curling into a mental fetal ball and mentally projecting myself into a saner parallel universe as a psychological defense mechanism” — but I can no longer do so.
question of the day: What is the most positive, most productive concept for a reality show you can think of?
Surely there must be a way to harness something of the worst-of-human-nature aspect that makes these shows popular while also highighting the best of what we can do…
wtf: ‘The Hurt Locker,’ for reals
I have no doubt that when historians look back at us from two thousand years in the future, they will sneer and express shock at reality television in the way that we sneer and express shock at the Roman spectacles of throwing Christians to the lions.
question of the day: Has TV simply gone crazy?
I’ve said more than once that even if Sturgeon’s Law holds true for TV — if 95 percent of what’s on the tube is crap (and that may be underestimating the amount of crap) — there’s still more non-crap than I can ever find the time to watch. Which is something I often take comfort … more…
question of the weekend: How do we fix what’s wrong with American politics?
Last night on The Rachel Maddow Show, Maddow proposed that we need to find a new word for “something that is both catastrophically important to the future of the United States and totally freaking boring,” something that “speaks directly to whether government is capable of actually governing.” She was referring to the filibuster, which is … more…
question of the day: Is there no length to which ‘news’ networks will not go for a ‘story,’ to which audiences will not go for a ‘thrill,’ and to which parents will not go for public attention?
Surprise, surprise: the “balloon-boy” saga of late last week was all a stunt, a hoax, a publicity grab by the parents of the supposedly missing kid. Says the Los Angeles Times: The strange case of Falcon Heene took another twist Sunday when a Colorado sheriff said the boy’s parents had staged the runaway balloon saga … more…
question of the day: Has reality TV finally reached rockbottom with ‘Reality Hell’?
Just when I think reality TV cannot possibly get any worse — like I did just a few months ago with Fox’s arranged-marriage reality show — I am proven wrong. Variety reports: E! will deconstruct the reality genre with its new nonscripted offering “Reality Hell,” airing Sundays starting Aug. 16. The half-hour, which received an … more…
question of the day: How could reality TV sink any lower than Fox’s new ‘I Married a Stranger’?
The Hollywood Reporter blog The Live Feed made the announcement: Fox is developing a wedding reality series where brides-to-be don’t meet their husbands until they exchange vows. In A. Smith & Co.’s “I Married a Stranger,” a woman frustrated by the dating scene agrees to marry a man she’s never met. While she prepares for … more…
