Reality TV? Who's reality is this, anyway?

Being Frank, by Frank Ameduri

When I moved back to Alaska in May, I pretty much came with what I could carry. I had my future packed into one big suitcase, two really big duffels and a backpack. I had barely enough cash to get into an apartment and set up a phone. I'm still sleeping on an air mattress, so cable TV is not at the top of my priority list. Casey (Resslin' Around) Ressler and his wife Tracy were kind enough to lend me a television, and I bought one of those newfangled signal-booster rabbit ear antennas for it. I think it causes hair loss, but the reception is pretty good.

I haven't been limited to network TV since the mid-70s, and boy how things have changed. In the old days, when HBO and Cinemax were pretty much the only games in Cabletown, there wasn't much to crow about. Those movie channels would get two or three movies each and run them over and over again for a month. They weren't always top-name flicks, either. At the time it seemed like a pretty good deal to watch Tunnelvision 647 times in one month. It was better than re-runs of Welcome Back Kotter, right?

Cable is a lot better than that, now -- relatively speaking, anyway. The increased choices and "edgy" programming on cable have driven the networks into some strange, new territory. I know that because the networks are all I have now. A great deal of what you get on "regular" TV these days is what's called "reality TV." I've seen a couple of the reality shows, and I'm guessing one of two things is going on here. Either the networks are stretching the truth a little, or I'm not living in the same reality as everyone else.

A lot of the shows are about getting lucky. There's one called "Meet the Folks," or "Meet my Folks," or something along those lines. Basically, three guys have a three- or four-day slumber party at some girl's house, and her parents get to choose one of them to take their daughter on a vacation. During the stay, the parents are bombarded with very disturbing faxes about the young men's past. At some point a bunch of old girlfriends drop by to dish dirt on the guys. Somewhere along the line, the guys are instructed to do something incredibly obnoxious to the parents, too. By the end of the show the viewers have all pretty much decided that all three young men ought to be in prison rather than on TV. The girl, however has fallen in love with at least one of the guys, usually two, and the parents are "torn" when they have to tell two of the boys to go home. "They're all so nice," the mom says through tears. These are guys with big league pornography collections and drug habits. Yikes.

In my reality, when I was young and seeking a date, I had to sit in the living room of my girlfriend's house with her father for a very painful hour or so while she got ready. Pop was usually a pretty surly guy with what looked like a bear skin rug growing on his back. Sometimes he'd be sitting there in his boxers. Sometimes I wasn't so lucky. Dad's role was to intimidate me out of any temptation to tarnish his daughter's good name. It usually worked. If I made one slip, the old man was never overly emotional about kicking me to the curb. That's my reality.

The other kind of reality on TV is the talk shows where they invite in-bred families and their friends and pets onto a set to air their dirty laundry. It almost always involves a guy who has decided to come clean to his wife that he's been spending more time than he ought to with her best friend, her sister, or wearing her clothes and riding around in cabs. If it's one of the infidelity ones, they always start with the "victim" woman. Then the guy comes out and fesses up, then the girlfriend comes out. There are rules for this progression. It's all in a book called Robert's Rules for Jackasses.

The deal is, the victim has to act really sweet and innocent when she's by herself. When the husband comes out, he gets to act just as scummy as he really is. When the girlfriend comes out, the victim has to call her by a pet name that must be bleeped out. Then the girlfriend has to say the word, "Ho" two or three dozen times. The two women then must leap from their chairs and do some world-class hair pulling and such. The husband is required to hide under his chair at this point. This scene may be played out three or four times. The audience must participate by cheering and clapping and generally encouraging the low-lifes to really mix it up.

I don't know about you, but that ain't my reality. If this is what Andy Warhol was talking about when he mentioned those 15 minutes of fame, he should be exhumed and called a name that requires much bleeping.

Frank Ameduri is barely connected to reality.