A Little Too Much
Reality
By Mary Frances,
for dumbhoosier.com
Let's talk about primetime TV for a moment. I'm
starting to get a little bit confused by all this reality.
Take your remote and do a TV scan of available programming somewhere
between 8 and 10 pm any given night. Every channel has all kinds
of
real life people doing all types of real-life stuff like losing weight,
singing, dancing, living in jungles together, housewiving, cruising
bars in Jersey, prepping to be models, living in playboy mansions,
partying in Miami, etc etc.
Enter Charlie Sheen. He plays a character, also named
Charlie, on a
highly popular sitcom. TV Charlie is a womanizing,
partying,
substance-abusing, irresponsible and funny guy who we all love and he
makes us laugh. And real-life Charlie is just about the
same only we
don't laugh at him as much. Then comes this more recent,
real-life
Charlie Sheen. We just don't know how to categorize him, do we?
Because if the crazy new Charlie had a reality show, I think America
would be OK with his antics. All controlled within the confines
of a
half-hour "reality" show. No problem. But let that
craziness loose,
without the constraints of our new kind of reality, and we get a little
nervous, don't we? Like a pit bull off his leash. News
anchors are
analyzing him, columnists and psychiatrists are all weighing in to
diagnose him and warn us about the dangers of his actions.
So I don't know about the rest of America, but I now have a real
problem with defining and recognizing reality these days.
(Remember
Archie Bunker, Uncle Fester, the Brady's?) Only one theme seems
to
connect all of this as we all tune in - profit. Duh,
winning.
Bio: Mary Frances is a Purdue graduate who majored in
journalism. She
and her family live in Northern Indiana where she has dabbled in
writing short stories over the years. She was published in the
Indy
Star Magazine in the 80's. She was a former Human Resources
Manager
and now works in social services. She loves to paint, read and
has a
casual interest in watching the antics of silly celebrities.
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