Entertainment: Reality TV

Reality TV: It’s a Mad, Mad, Deceptive, World

By Kelly A. Sudol

The most popular reality TV shows seem to revolve around one thing: money. These shows make us ask ourselves: How far would I go for money? How far would I go for $50 grand? What would I do for a million? Would I marry someone I didn’t love if he had $50 million dollars?
These are questions reality show contestants must ask themselves. They have to determine if being rich is worth these obstacles, these hardships, and sometimes the torment.
“Can I eat a live cockroach, for $50 G’s?”
“Can I survive on an island for months, for a mil?”
And quite possibly the most ridiculous yet…
“Can I lie to my family, make them think I’m in love with and engaged to a total slob, and convince them to come to our wedding…for half a mil?”
Is it really worth jeopardizing your relationships, your health, love life, safety, and morals, all for a chunk of change?
Apparently, for the people on these shows, it is.
On the reality show Fear Factor, contestants compete to win money. There are physical stunts like hanging from helicopters and the notorious eating of animal parts, like raw pig intestines, or sometimes live creatures like worms.
The competition is fierce and the strength it takes to do some of these stunts is remarkable, but on the brighter side, it doesn’t last long. There are a new set of contestants on each show.
My Big, Fat, Obnoxious FiancÇ, on the other hand, tracked a family’s daily life while they prepared for their daughter to marry…well, her big, fat, obnoxious fiancÇ. The family was unaware, however that their loving daughter was deceiving them so she could win money. The family, and the girl, who had to constantly lie and keep up the act, were put threw the ringer everyday until the grand finale…also known as the wedding day.
At least on Survivor, the contestants knew what they were getting themselves into at the beginning. Well, for the most part. Deceits within relationships and tribes are bound to happen, since the prize of the competition is, of course, money. Sure, many of ’survivors’ claim they’re taking this challenge only to test themselves, and to push themselves to see what they can accomplish. But in the end, the winner still gets the million, whether they truly wanted it or not.
A new show this season, Mad Mad House, which airs on the Sci-Fi Channel, is also about winning money, $100 grand to be exact. The show features five very strange, very different people, a witch, a vampire, a voodoo priestess, a naturist, and a modern primitive. The “Alts” live in a mansion together and invite 10 contestants to stay with them. The contestants are challenged physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually by the Alts, all to be the last man, or woman standing and win the dough.
The Alts want the contestants to learn something from them and to change their lives, not try to compete for the money. But who can ignore $100,000? The contestants try to fake out the Alts by making them believe they are learning from them and gaining new beliefs, in other words, deceive them for the cash.
The deception in reality shows is astonishing and the worst part is, America is buying into it. We are hypnotized by the greed, the shallowness, the vanity and the dishonesty that these shows promote.
Hopefully the public wants and expects more out of their lives and won’t let a trend, like reality TV, change their morals and faith in humanity.