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Reality, Reality Reality.
Where's the true reality?
What's happened to T.V. today?
Has everyone gone mad?
What happened to conflicts
Between the good and bad?
To real sitcoms like Lucy
And Father Knows Best,
And dear Andy Griffin,
And all of the rest?
And what about the docudramas
Aren't they for real?
Take Dragnet--real file cases
But with great drama appeal.
Oh now we've got surviver, big brother, fear factor and the rest
Putting folks like you and me through this and that great test.
You sit glued to see the outcome, though you know it's all contrived.
I wonder how much longer this new fad can stay long lived.
Why the big push for reality? Didn't it all come about after the actor's
and writer's strike some years ago? Some may say, "enough of fiction, let's get to what is real." And some may think it helpful to see ourselves as we are. But is it really reality?
They take ordinary people, it's true, and put them in unordinary situations.
And yet the people are carefully chosen and the situations are all contrived by the producers.
Did you ever ask yourself whether, like the rigged quiz shows of the past, the outcome may be known by the producers before it happens? So, again, I ask, is it really reality?
Answering this question may help us answer the more important one: Is it really good for society? These shows remind me of the Roman games which were the harbinger of
Rome's downfall. Thus I feel these show are not only a waste of viewer's time, but can actually have a negative effect on society as a whole. If this situation continues and these shows overtake the media, we will have lost the aritistic and given in to the more animal insticts of our nature. We need to get back to stressing the artistic elements of our culture as did the Greeks.
Hopeful this so called reality fad will die out soon and the networks
can once again concentrate on presenting great dramas and comedies.
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