A pleasant morning to everyone, to my fellow classmates of Third Year St. Magdalene and to our beloved English teacher Mrs. Mabbayad. I’m here in front of you to defend for what I believe and to share experiences and opinions based from everyday life observations.
Transferring live mice, snakes, or other insects from a glass container using your bare mouth. A housewife keeps on singing, dancing, and acting as the jury tells her to stop and leave the stage. Walking through a grease-coated bamboo on a height above waters to find a piece of jigsaw puzzle telling where the torch would be found, on a noon-hot day. Familiar? Yes, they call this reality shows. I don't really understand the infatuation of watching people eat bugs for money or washed up celebrities fighting just for a chance back in the spotlight. After all the few times I get to watch television is to get away from the real world for a while, even if it's in 30 minute blocks.
The height of popularity made by this shows had reached the critical minds on why is there a need for these shows to exist. A reality show is a genre of television programming which presents purportedly unscripted dramatic or humorous situations. It usually features ordinary people instead of professional actors. It also covers a wide range of programming formats, from game or quiz shows to surveillance or other productions. It should not be focused with a documentary, in which the contestants are asked to ignore the cameras and behave naturally. Like mostly reality shows, it is usually inexpensive to produce compared to other television programs yet it consistently reaches its target audience. Whether we watch a group of people live together in a house or watch them build the house reality television exposes that little peeping tom is all of us. Reality TV satisfies that instinct of peering into others lives, and the reality of reality television is that as humans we enjoy this. Reality TV is not much different from normal programs, like any program, reality television has the essentials, it has a mix of characters, it puts those characters in situation, and the result is usually a failure or success.
A normal person would go in front of the camera with the current status of life she/he has which is a simple living. Then, they’ll go out with the sparkling stars surrounding them. A reality show is just one way of reaching out our dreams. A way where all dreams can be possibly reached and come true. But before getting all this, it requires a hard work, a skillful mind and complete trust and confidence in ourselves. The person who joins follows their dreams. I'm sure it wasn't easy. To follow them they had to step outside their comfort zones and make themselves vulnerable in front of a crowd. Pursuing this allowed them to improve themselves physically and almost by accident improve their whole outlook on lives.
It is a one way to success. Whether reality shows ultimately fades into television history or continues to evolve with the medium as a unique genre, for over fifty years it has offered interesting, often controversial entertainment and success to every person who joins.
-January 12, 2010
