Reality TV: Say Goodbye to the "Real Me"

Prime time TV is increasingly giving up fictional materials for the real thing - people more like you and me, who may sing, dance, get mad, and survive difficult situations. As many commentators suggest, we are drawn to reality TV because we can live vicariously through the people we watch. We can more easily identify with them. They fascinate us far more than make-believe characters because they aren't fictional. They live among us.
At first glance it seems easy enough to distinguish between real people and fictional characters. But in my view, the distinction is rapidly vanishing. What we count as the person's "real self" is slowly merging with the fictional one. Why is this so? First, think here of the old adage, "Life copies art." Here we are reminded that our lives are affected by the dramas we absorb. There is nothing about the events of daily life that are dramatic in themselves. Life in the raw is just one thing after another. The sense of drama - that "something is important" - is largely the result of our looking at these events in terms of stories. From early child-hood on, we are awash in stories: fairy tales, comic book stories, religious stories, fables, myths, TV cartoons, family legends, soap operas, movies, and so on. Here we learn about good and evil, heroes and villains, success and failure - essentially, ways of seeing our lives as drama. Stories teach us about what matters and what to do about it: fighting evil, winning the game, overcoming obstacles, consummating a romance, and so on. Think of your friends whose tales of their lives send you sprawling with laughter, or that are gut wrenching, sad, or dear. These people seldom have lives that are so different from the rest of us. Rather, they know how to tell good stories.
But, you might also ask, doesn't reality TV now reverse this trend? No more life copying art. After all, we are now watching real people. But are we? Consider: If you know you are being watched by millions of TV viewers, how "real" are you likely to be? You are not likely to pick your nose, make an off-color remark, scratch your crotch, or look half awake. Why? You are entertainment; you are there to perform! So now we have dramatic performances that are made to seem real. And as we absorb these "realistic" dramas, they become our ways of doing "real" life. Or should we say, "reel life?"
But it is not simply reality TV that turns daily life into a dramatic art... Increasingly we are coming to serve as actors, directors and producers on our own. As Neal Gabler proposes in his book, Life, the Movie, our culture is turning public events into dramatic spectacles, much like what we see on the screen. A presidential inauguration is a prime example. Or think of the Superbowl! In everyday life, weddings - real events for sure - are slowly coming to resemble a theatrical performance. More important than the vows are the photographers, video recorders, and guests with cell phone cameras who may post it on Facebook before the cake is cut. It's almost as if it didn't happen until there is a public picture of it. Similarly with our children's lives. As we photograph and film them we are making their lives into epic stories. Soon we have our children posing for these events, learning how to smile and be funny or endearing. We may even have them perform an action twice, so we can be certain that it will photograph well...or we can send it to America's Funniest Home Videos.
So, where does all this leave us: the real and the fictitious begin to merge, and in daily life there is no easy sorting of what is the true me as opposed to me the actor. There is no easy "looking inside" to find the "real me," as one may only find another actor in disguise. But I do not think this is reason for despair. Those "real me" folks can be awfully inflexible. When we think we have found one, we are often backed into a corner. There is nowhere to move; this is the end of the line. In pausing to consider the fact that this self is but another performance - only more believable - we open the possibility for new moves in the game of life.