American television has reached a new low. In fact, I cannot see how the programming could really get any worse. Between America's celebrity obsession and the disease of reality television, it is virtually impossible to turn on a TV without being bombarded by this mind-numbing garbage. Since its inception, critics have complained that TV makes people lazy, intellectually stagnant and just plain dumb. Although I'm wary to throw myself in with this lot, I think this time they might be right.
I think this problem is far more serious than many people would make it out to be. Just take a look at what has become the industry standard on the airwaves these days. We have a show where people eat worms for money, a show where spoiled brat teenagers who could use a good slap get to plan their sweet-sixteen parties, a show where a washed-up rapper-caricature looks for "true love," a show about all the places in this world that hotel heiresses have chosen to defile with their presence, a show where ... The list goes on and on and on.
As I try to enumerate the various shows about how glamorous it is to be a famous person doing nothing or about picking a date based on the contestants' respective mothers, I find myself asking what this says about our country.
What does it say about the American people who -- with all the interesting things going on in the world today -- can find nothing better to watch other than shows depicting life in the "real O.C." I guess I finally understand what my fifth-grade teacher meant when she called us the "MTV generation."
Reality and celebrity television is eroding America's moral fiber and creativity. No longer do we lavish praise on shows that require actual performances or creative scriptwriting. We are far more content to put "real" people in an apartment and see how they "get along." In the end, however, we're the ones who are being fooled. None of the so-called reality TV is actually real, because in the real world, people could not behave the way they do on "The Simple Life" or the "Real World" -- at least, not without getting the hell beat out of them for their utter offensiveness. The real problem inherent in labeling these shows lies in their effect on the kids who are watching. The stamp of "reality" suggests that the behavior they see on television from people like Paris Hilton or Flava Flav is reasonable or acceptable.
Our television personalities are no longer men of action, serving as examples of how to act in difficult situations or even comedy stars who make us laugh. Instead, they are people who literally do nothing but sit around an apartment and have "conflicts," or spend lots and lots of money or "pimp-out" people's cars.
These shows beget and promote laziness among American youth. Are these the role models that we want people to have? Is the crew that puts Sprite machines and PS2's in people's cars all that American creativity has amounted too?
This country has started to slide down a dangerous slope of cultural apathy. For better or worse, we are the leader of the civilized world, and we should take it upon ourselves to reflect this fact in our attitudes, our role models and our television. Television has a tremendous impact on the way we behave and react in our everyday lives. Therefore, it is incumbent on us to assure that the role models that appear to us in our living rooms and dorm rooms are people worth watching and, more importantly, worth emulating. Television shows that promote lethargy and greed do nothing but dumb-down American children, destroy intellectual curiosity and dilute the values that make this country great.
