James Walcott writes in Vanity Fair that the influence of reality television “has not only ruined network values, destroyed the classic documentary, and debased the art of bad acting, but also fomented class warfare, antisocial behavior, and murder.” What say you?
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Society affected by art, or vice-versa? The age-old question remains unanswered. Jeff(Quote)
Exactly. I don’t have an answer, either. Did the marketers of reality television see an aspect of society that would respond well to the genre, or did they market in a way to create a desire in viewers that people did not have before? Sam Scott(Quote)
People have always exhibited antisocial tendencies. Check the Torah — one member of the VERY FIRST set of brothers killed the other. Or even further than that — when God asked who gave them the fruit of the tree of knowledge, Adam immediately — and I mean IMMEDIATELY — sold out Eve, saying, “It was the woman you gave me who gave me the fruit, and I ate it.” So from the beginning of time, people have been lying to each other, betraying one another’s trust, and killing one another. So-called “reality” TV merely groups people together that are likely to obviously exhibit such behavior, artificially modifies situations to create such behavior, then edits the available footage to maximize the impact of such behavior. This, of course, is why I don’t watch those types of shows. Dan(Quote)