What’s Reality

My browser has gone beserk, so I can only hope that this is the proper place to type in my blog entry for today. (For this month?)

I intend to post blog stuff more often, but somehow, just don’t get by to do it. Even when I have something to blog about.

For instance, this time, I want to comment about Reality Television. I don’t watch it. At least not if I can help it. Well, except for the house-building/remodeling/decorating type shows. And “What Not To Wear.”I have to confess I have a pretty good Jones for the HGTV channel, and TLC. But most reality television leaves me cold. Because really–think about it–just how real can it be?

Face it, Not ONE of us is going to reveal all to our significant others, much less a zillion strangers out in televisionland. We’re just NOT. There’s some secret, vulnerable part of each one of us that we’re going to keep hidden and secret simply because it IS so vulnerable, and who knows what somebody would do with that information if they got their little hands on it? Oh, we might tell part of the truth. But we’re not going to tell ALL. Nobody would.

Which is why I think scripted television/drama is more real than reality TV. Because the actors in scripted (fictional) TV aren’t giving away their own secrets. They’re opening up somebody else’s vulnerable underbelly. It’s not them–it’s like them, but it isn’t them.

Actors use their own experiences and emotions to portray the characters, but the experiences are disguised. Perhaps more extreme–but maybe not. But because it’s not them in the story, they can cut loose and give it all up. So, even though the stories may not be “true”, they’re more “real.” Or at least that’s my opinion, and I’m sticking to it.