Stop Reality TV

[Debora123]

I enjoy reality tv programs, and I don’t like people who look down on others who enjoy this stuff. Who cares? If you don’t like it, don’t spoil “Survivor” for those of us that do.

Click the button marked “off” on your TV set.

I love you…

 

[Debora123]

I agree. I think this goes back to a thread I remember from awhile back about some people expecting everything in the media to be child friendly. Is there a lot of junk out there? Are there a lot of shows that aren’t appropriate for kids? Sure! But that doesn’t mean adults can’t enjoy them.

I can watch Survivor for the challenges and team work and ignore the negative parts. It doesn’t make me want to go out and lie to everyone. I love crime dramas, but watching them doesn’t make me want to go out and murder people. If someone else knows that these shows could be problematic for them, by all means, change the channel, but why does that mean I have to?

And I also have a problem with condemning a whole genre. Like others have already mentioned, there are some reality shows that are more family friendly, a lot of the cooking shows, Amazing Race is usually pretty good, so I have a hard time with people saying that ALL of xyz type shows are evil. There are usually a pretty wide range in any genre.

 

[Catholic90]

I am watching “dr G, Medical Examiner” right now. It’s pretty cool. You follow a medical examiner as she does autopsies to figure out how people died. Fascinating.

 

[Debora123]

I am watching “dr G, Medical Examiner” right now. It’s pretty cool. You follow a medical examiner as she does autopsies to figure out how people died. Fascinating.

I like that too. As well as “Forensic Files” on TruTV.

I think it’s so interesting how they put together the tiniest details to solve an entire crime.

 

[MarkAndrew]

I agree. I think this goes back to a thread I remember from awhile back about some people expecting everything in the media to be child friendly. Is there a lot of junk out there? Are there a lot of shows that aren’t appropriate for kids? Sure! But that doesn’t mean adults can’t enjoy them.

I can watch Survivor for the challenges and team work and ignore the negative parts. It doesn’t make me want to go out and lie to everyone. I love crime dramas, but watching them doesn’t make me want to go out and murder people. If someone else knows that these shows could be problematic for them, by all means, change the channel, but why does that mean I have to?

And I also have a problem with condemning a whole genre. Like others have already mentioned, there are some reality shows that are more family friendly, a lot of the cooking shows, Amazing Race is usually pretty good, so I have a hard time with people saying that ALL of xyz type shows are evil. There are usually a pretty wide range in any genre.

I’m just saying, adults or children, satan has a way of getting into all of our minds. If a show is fiction, we make a mental note, if it’s reality we think and feel some people act and do these things. I just think we need to be more cautious and aware of the ways satan can enter our lives. I know I’m being a bit extreme, but I work in a bank (that’s open on Sundays) next to a church and the way people treat people after leaving their services; superior attitudes, entitlement…all forms of sin. We’re bombarded with so much bad stuff, it’s difficult to sort through and find the good stuff. So much so that we immediately forget what we just learned in church and treat others like trash.

 

[TheRealJuliane]

I am watching “dr G, Medical Examiner” right now. It’s pretty cool. You follow a medical examiner as she does autopsies to figure out how people died. Fascinating.

I can’t watch that one, it bugs me too much that her “dead bodies” are still nice and pink! LOL

I do like “Trauma: Life in the ER” but they haven’t made any new shows in years. I don’t know anyone else who can handle that show - there’s a whole lotta blood and gore, surgeries, etc. - but I just love and admire people who save lives. I pray for all doctors, nurses and everyone in the medical field, as well as police officers and emergency personnel, as I watch that show.

I do not like the fake documentaries that have re-enactments. Give me the real deal, please, and if I can’t take it, I will turn away.

I also like the “I Survived” and “I Survived…There and Back” shows. Where someone tells the story of a crime or an accident. The 2nd one (not sure that’s the title) is from people who have clinically died and then returned. I love to hear what they say happens after they died.

 

[CountrySinger]

Don’t touch my “Mythbusters”! I would watch that show everyday, and I don’t blink if my nephews and nieces watch it.

Plus, I’m seeing the Mythbusters on tour in March. I’m a total groupie.

 

[garn9173]

There are lot of good reality shows on cable (Moonshiners, Ice Road Truckers, etc.) and in 2010, Animal Planet’s Last American Cowboy was great to watch.

My biggest thing with reality shows is that they grow stale real fast, see Ice Road Truckers as an example. When the show first started, it was awsome, but after 3 years of being in Alaska with basically the same cast, I didn’t even finish watching season 3 of Alaska because it was stale.

Reality shows are the rage because 1 - they are cheap to produce, 2 - people watch them and 3 - advertisers know people watch them. As long as people are watching and reality shows and advertisers will buy the advertising then reality shows will be around for the forseeable future.

 

[garn9173]

I like the Cops shows, Bait Car, Jail, Vegas Strip, Beyond Scared Straight, Storage Wars, Dog the Bounty Hunter, American Pickers, Pawn Stars, Hardcore Pawn, the show with gold prospecting in Alaska, Alaska State Troopers, and then there are the “World’s Dumbest” shows on TruTV…pretty funny.

I fall asleep to one of these every night!

There was one show onTruTV that was on at the local Elks. Can’t recall the show, but it featured the likes of Tonya Harding & Danny Boundiance (sp?) making wise crack comments on people’s stupidity caught on tape. First time I saw it, didn’t know whether to laugh or feel my IQ drop like the first & only time I’ve watched TMZ.

 

[Samson01]

There are lot of good reality shows on cable (Moonshiners, Ice Road Truckers, etc.) and in 2010, Animal Planet’s Last American Cowboy was great to watch.

My biggest thing with reality shows is that they grow stale real fast, see Ice Road Truckers as an example. When the show first started, it was awsome, but after 3 years of being in Alaska with basically the same cast, I didn’t even finish watching season 3 of Alaska because it was stale.

Reality shows are the rage because 1 - they are cheap to produce, 2 - people watch them and 3 - advertisers know people watch them. As long as people are watching and reality shows and advertisers will buy the advertising then reality shows will be around for the forseeable future.

That guy Tim on moonshiners used to come by the shop I painted at in Winchester, VA. He knew an installer there…both were involved with the fire dept.

 

[TheRealJuliane]

There was one show onTruTV that was on at the local Elks. Can’t recall the show, but it featured the likes of Tonya Harding & Danny Boundiance (sp?) making wise crack comments on people’s stupidity caught on tape. First time I saw it, didn’t know whether to laugh or feel my IQ drop like the first & only time I’ve watched TMZ.

It’s Bonaduce. He’s a train wreck, all right. So is Tonya Harding. Those shows drive me NUTS! Hate them all. Bonaduce had his own reality show for a while, but he was such an unfriendly character it didn’t last long.

 

[Matrix_Refugee]

Sorry to disagree, but I don’t see a lot of promiscuity and sin on “Deadliest Catch”, “Cake Boss”, or “Dance Moms”. Maybe you need to stop watching the Kardashians and Jersey Shore?

Same goes for “Undercover Boss” (where a CEO or what have you of a company pretends to be a new employee at the very bottom of the company pecking order) and “Secret Millionaire” (in which a wealthy person visits several charitable organizations under an assumed identity, works with them for a day or two and decides which one they’re going to give a sizable donation). It’s nice to see people being kind to each other!

My mom occasionally watches “Supernanny”: some of the families featured can be like watching train wrecks, and it’s always a relief to see the kids turn from brats to at least better-behaved if not well-behaved.

 

[dconklin]

I think people that make broad and sweeping statements like the OP really need to relax and worry less about controlling the viewing selections for those of us that can make our own adult decisions.

With that said… They can go ahead and kill MTV. I am not sure how long ago this happened, but they do not have music videos on there any more - so I am told.

 

[garn9173]

I think people that make broad and sweeping statements like the OP really need to relax and worry less about controlling the viewing selections for those of us that can make our own adult decisions.

Yep, that’s what the V-Chip, TV ratings prior to the start of non sports & news programming, and parental control funcations on a cable/satellite box are for.

 

[kbachler]

Does television simply mimic society and provide what viewers want or does it shape it? Or both?

Clearly, TV has an impact on viewer behavior. If not, there wouldn’t be TV advertising. Companies wouldn’t spend money year after year on failed advertising.

 

[daisy_jones]

I have a more radical solution I doubt most of you could handle (especially the abundance of youth that seems to inhabit this site):

Don’t take this or that show or program off TV.

Take the TV out of your house. Bye bye!

It really can be done. “Oh, but how will I stay informed?”
I am extremely well-informed: I read.

I haven’t had a TV in 30 years.

As an experiment, just to discover what you will do with all those wonderful liberated hours, try unplugging yours for one month. Maybe for Lent?

I am seriously considering getting rid of my cable / tv hookup. I have tried some trial periods without it, and I am SO much more productive, which should not be a shock, but it was to me nonetheless. I get so much more reading and rehearsing (I am in a choral group) done - I am actually going to try and teach myself a language, which would require a lot of studying and if I want to be a good student, it will have to be bye-bye tv! Plus, it will save me some money each month! I will keep the actual tv for movies (esp since I want to get a blue ray which will let me get netflix right to my tv.)

The only reality shows I watch are Project Runway, Chopped, and Top Chef. I used to watch Deadliest Catch, but when they started getting sponsors for every inch of the show, it turned me off.

 

[Matrix_Refugee]

Thought of a few more that came to mind, which didn’t have any sexual immorality, etc.

A few years back, PBS ran a few reality shows where people lived, for a few weeks/months/however long they could hold out, like people did in different historical times. “Pioneer Family” had two or three families living out in the middle of nowhere in the western U. S. of A, growing their own food and building their own cabins. One family, who were farmers from Vermont, did very well since they were used to this kind of life; another, some wannabes from California, didn’t do so well: the teenagers kept cheating by sneaking off to the nearest town to buy fancy shampoo, and using a cellphone they weren’t supposed to have.

There was another, from the BBC, “Blitz House”, in which people had to live in a house set up like a typical London home during World War II…complete with food rationing and unannounced simulated air raids where they had to scurry to basement, and even having to live with the windows covered with blackout curtains in the evening. Some people quickly got cross with the limited variety of food (and no TV/Internet/mobile phones).

There were a couple others, one with people living as if they were in the medieval times, and another with people working as domestic help in a 19th century manor house that had been refit to 19th century levels of technology (ie. no electricity), but I never watched those, so I can’t comment on the content.

 

[TheRealJuliane]

Thought of a few more that came to mind, which didn’t have any sexual immorality, etc.

A few years back, PBS ran a few reality shows where people lived, for a few weeks/months/however long they could hold out, like people did in different historical times. “Pioneer Family” had two or three families living out in the middle of nowhere in the western U. S. of A, growing their own food and building their own cabins. One family, who were farmers from Vermont, did very well since they were used to this kind of life; another, some wannabes from California, didn’t do so well: the teenagers kept cheating by sneaking off to the nearest town to buy fancy shampoo, and using a cellphone they weren’t supposed to have.

There was another, from the BBC, “Blitz House”, in which people had to live in a house set up like a typical London home during World War II…complete with food rationing and unannounced simulated air raids where they had to scurry to basement, and even having to live with the windows covered with blackout curtains in the evening. Some people quickly got cross with the limited variety of food (and no TV/Internet/mobile phones).

There were a couple others, one with people living as if they were in the medieval times, and another with people working as domestic help in a 19th century manor house that had been refit to 19th century levels of technology (ie. no electricity), but I never watched those, so I can’t comment on the content.

I liked that first one “Pioneer House,” but when I really consider what they are doing, it is not the same, you have cameramen in your face all day, every day. It’s really just another artificial situation that ordinary people participate in and become actors.

 

[Matrix_Refugee]

I liked that first one “Pioneer House,” but when I really consider what they are doing, it is not the same, you have cameramen in your face all day, every day. It’s really just another artificial situation that ordinary people participate in and become actors.

Mmm, I tend to question the use of the term “reality” in the phrase “reality TV” and how much that word applies in that context. The only way I think it could apply is if the cameras are hidden somehow and just left rolling constantly, closed-circuit style.

 

[Nec5]

Clearly, TV has an impact on viewer behavior. If not, there wouldn’t be TV advertising. Companies wouldn’t spend money year after year on failed advertising.

Then that speaks volumes about the education level of the citizenry and I’m not referring to schooling.