Just so we are clear: Survivor, Joe Millioniare and The Anna Nicole Show divert, but they do not entertain.
Shows That Have Lost Their Way
These shows fill the evening hours, but they do not provide the minimum daily requirement of intellect and soul stretching that we should be finding in our entertainment. But there’s no point in being apocalyptic about the reality TV trend either. Are You Hot?, The Osborns and Fear Factor are not a fatal societal cancer or even just another insidious harbinger of cultural decay. These shows probably won’t make you or your kids spiritually sick. But they certainly have no power to anyone spiritually well. That power still resides in story-based entertainment. Even when they fail to use it, scripted dramas like NYPD Blue, or Ed, or Everwood have an innate power that reality shows can’t even approach.
To be fair, the main reason that the masses of viewers have abandoned the episodic dramas to watch modern day meat markets like The Bachelor is because the scripted shows have lost their way. Most primetime dramas can be written off as formulaic soap operas in which miserable characters wander around in the same kind of moral confusion that we can find in any cubicle or coffee shop on any American street.
There was a time when procedural shows — cops, lawyers and doctors — were all about heroism. Remember the early years of ER, when the show was actually about great doctors who were trying to do the right thing? For the last several seasons, “doing the right thing” never seems to even be up for discussion on ER. The characters are all consumed with their own selfish need fulfillment. Watching the show lately is as entertaining as being trapped on an elevator with a spoiled, whiny teenager.
Better Than Real
I have met many writers and producers in Hollywood who are quick to state that their goal is to create shows that are “real.” They reject the sentimentality and simplicity of shows like Doc and Seventh Heaven and are determined to serve up to audiences characters who are “real people,” placed in situations that are as gritty and mundane as the world off-screen. They tend to eliminate the central thematic spine that has always defined great works of art or literature. As I have heard innumerable times, “Real life doesn’t unfold around a theme. Real life is scattered and confused and disconnected.” Ironically, in eliminating the universal theme in their dramatic writing,
television writers have broken ground for reality television, and facilitated their own demise.
It’s not that we want entertainment that is sentimental and fake. The fact is, to work as entertainment, a story and its characters must be at least as good as real life. But to really fulfill it’s function in a healthy human life, entertainment has to be better than real. Much better. Great art is not just how things look, but rather, what things mean.
In the book, Mystery and Manners, the great Catholic writer Flannery O’Connor notes that “in order to get at the truth a certain distortion is necessary.” It’s not that the truth is distorted, but rather that people and events must be larger than life to function as effective archetypes through which we can learn. Once, someone confronted O’Connor with the accusation, “Your characters aren’t real!” And the writer responded, “But, I’m not trying to write ‘real’ characters. I’m trying to write good characters.” We get plenty of real life. The attraction of story and drama, and its role in human life, is that it sets before us examples that we can’t find in everyday life. Uncommon heroism. Uncompromising virtue. Unconditional love. Exceptional ability. Extraordinary circumstances.
Defending his fiction against charges that it was “escapist,” Lord of the Rings author, J.R.R. Tolkien noted that people who are in a prison need some kind of escape. This world in which the Church wanders as a pilgrim will always be a “valley of tears.” Stories are supposed to give us a brief reprieve from our struggles, to get sustaining visions of the more perfect world to which we are called. Tolkien noted that every “happy ending” in literature, gives us hope of the ultimate happy ending that is waiting for all those who persevere in virtue and faith.
The Power of a Story
Reality television provides many of the accidents of drama, in the same way that junk food provides many of the same sensations that one experiences in eating a balanced meal. There are characters, although because they are so under-developed, the shows generally have to offer up a large panoply to keep audiences interested. In a good story, two or three characters will usually do the trick. Suspense is produced cheaply on the reality shows, by turning each show into a contest for love or fame or money. A good story generates suspense by contrasting a character’s dreams with their possibilities.
But reality shows cannot approximate the essential nutrient that can only be found in a well-constructed parable. Stories have a message. They are an argument. They have a point. This fact constitutes their claim on a viewer’s attention. Whether they are ultimately true or false, processing these dramatic journeys is good for us. It makes us grow. Reality television can never accommodate a well-developed universal theme. What you see is all you can ever really get.
Most of us have precious little time to spend in recreation. And yet, recreation is essential for a healthy, balanced, and holy human life. Until the episodic dramas get back on track, try reading some classics of literature in your leisure time. With their inability to really heal and renew us, The Mole and Get Me Out of Here, I’m a Celebrity are frivolities that most of us cannot afford.
Barbara Nicolosi teaches screenwriting to aspiring Catholic writers at the acclaimed Act One: Writing for Hollywood. You may email her at Actone2000@aol.com.
(Originally published in LIGUORIAN Magazine, One Liguori Drive, Liguori, MO, 63057.)
