The phrase “Reality TV” is up there with the most misused phrases in the English language. What part of Reality TV is reality, exactly? Is it the Immunity Idols? Eight person communes designed for conflict by psychologists? Makeup-caked housewives yanking each other’s extensions for screen time? If this is reality, kill me now.
Thankfully (and I imagine most of us know this), Reality TV is far from reality. It’s poorly named. Maybe it’s just saying this is the reality of what happens when you take people hellbent on fame and shove it in their faces. I don’t know. What I do know is if you can convince people you’re acting normal while being broadcast into millions of homes, you’re an actor. This is primarily because of a psychological effect called reactivity. Very simply: people act differently when they know they’re being watched. This is why great acting (convincing people what they’re watching is real) is a rare talent.
So this begs the question: What is actual reality (lowercase r) TV? One show comes to mind. That show is Girls.
Girls, created by and starring Lena Dunham, is in its second season on HBO. It profiles Hannah, a recent Oberlin graduate, and her friends as they figure out what they want to make of themselves in New York. Describing the plot line doesn’t really do it justice. It’s a great show because I know Hannah… and Marnie and Jessa and Ray. I went to college with them. I dated them. I broke up with them. The show is listed as fiction but it’s more true to life than anything I’ve ever seen on TV. The interactions, the dialogue, the characters’ motivations are all impressively familiar. They’re not representative in a stereotypical way – they’re realistic in an original way.
So while the ship has probably sailed on renaming Reality TV, it’s refreshing to see some reality, on my TV.
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