Volume 2, number 10, October 2000 Reality Television As the old Chinese philosopher, Confusions, said: "The paths to enlightheadedment are many." One of the stranger ones leads through Galaxy Quest, a seeming run-of-the-mill end-of-the-universe, large-breasted-co-star, exploding-aliens kind of movie. But these aliens have chosen to model their technology and values on "historical documents" beamed from earth, which turn out to be episodes of the TV show Galaxy Quest (read Star Trek). In a tragic moment, the GQ aliens are confronted with the fact that they based their world on fiction, on lies. But I realized that our very salvation may be in the fictions we create, and then it struck me that this realization could have saved me the $450 I paid for a World Religions class. But imagine what the aliens would have done if they had modeled their lives on broadcasts of reality... Reality TV, Part I: The Olympics Slow-motion raindrops bounce off the race track, and a deep voice resonates in a mix of omniscience and admiration: "The courage... The dedication... Human achievement at its highest level embodied in the grit and determination of these young athletes... It’s the exciting final of the new 2,225-meter race, where a young American faces his moment of truth." The camera zeroes in on our hero’s steely, yet compassionate gaze. "It’s an amazing story about a young man who three years ago thought he could never walk again and today is in the race of his life." We switch to a pristine forest scene, expecting an SUV to come flying through the underbrush, and learn about the "horrible accident Jon Schnellschnecke suffered while resting against a tree after a long day of training. He was listening to his Walkman and never heard the chain-saw. Next thing he knew, he was floating downriver among the logs and had to swim for an hour to retrieve his severed legs. He then dragged himself 15 miles to the nearest town, where he was pronounced dead. But Jon had also caught a cold while in the water. He sneezed and was promptly flown to a hospital where the doctors sewed his legs back on but told him that he could never walk again. "This, Jon could not accept. He gritted his teeth and started dragging himself the length of the 2,225-meter track. Soon he was covering the distance on his knees. Then, one fine day, he stood up and walked. That's when disaster struck. Jon's idol was his father, himself a track athlete in the 1952 Olympics. And just as Jon was recovering from his tragic accident, his father fell victim to a malignant brain tumor and died. Jon was shattered, but he remembered his father's motto: ‘Git movin’, boy.’ And so Jon persevered and became the top US runner in the 2,225 meters. These Games will prove whether Jon is the fastest man in the world over the distance. "Unfortunately, during the second day of qualifying runs, misfortune once again struck this great athlete. In a hurry to see her son race, his mother didn't look and was run over by an ice-cream van outside the stadium and died, but not before grasping her son's hand one last time and whispering ‘win the gold for me, Jon.’ So today he stands in the final. Can he put all this behind himself and win the medal? Can Jon grit his teeth one more time? These questions will be answered after a commercial break and a three-hour smorgasboard of Olympic graphics and images of Sydney fading in and out and more commercials and great Olympic moments and NBC logos and plugs and more commercials and half-hour visits to aborigine canoe-building rituals and more commercials and a couple of hours of ultra-fragmented sports events, until your head is spinning and you just wish we would flash an 800-number across the screen so you could buy the canoes or the Sydney Opera House or whatever will make it all go away..." Three hours later, we finally get to the heralded final, where we are again introduced to Jon Schnellschnecke and have a moment of deja-vu as the announcers give us an extended summary of the "human interest" story we already saw (no pun intended Jon!). We see Jon walking in circles shaking his legs in anticipation. The camera dwells on the scars on his thighs, and then we zero in on the "opponent," Vladimir Zabigchiz, who looks like he’s been mad ever since the Berlin Wall came down. All along we hear the announcers: "What could be going on in Jon’s mind?" "Will he make good for all he lost?" "What do the stars [camera pans to the American flag] hold for this young man?" These profoundly enlightening questions lead us into another commercial trough just as the athletes get on their marks. We rejoin the race and watch the runners round the last curve. Motivational music echoes as the last ten seconds of the race are stretched to two minutes to show us, slow motion, the joy and triumph as Jon crosses the finish line first with a look like he is about to be ill. The crowd's cheers are drowned out by the announcers: "Yes! Another gold for the US! And this great athlete managed to surmount the incredible adversity he has faced, as well as that stomach flu he got yesterday, and go on to win this race. And Jack Kopfschuss has the glorious winner with him." $700 million worth of NBC Olympic access is suddenly all worth it as Jack pushes by incoming runners to grab Jon, who is staggering around gasping for breath: "So, Jon, two days ago you lost your mother, but today you won a gold medal. How does it feel?" "It must be a game show," whisper the GQ aliens. "The viewer who manages to keep track of an event despite all the garbage in between must win a prize." The pioneer of no-attention-span television, MTV, is a dinosaur compared to the schizoid coverage of the Olympics. And the announcers shattered all world records for bombastic gibberish and heart-wretching personal interest stories. But their record would not hold for long, for just a few weeks later... Reality TV, Part II: The Presidential Debates No Olympic excitement and tension can match the 90 minutes of a Bush/Gore debate. And no contest is as tough: Candidates have to appeal to corporate media judges in order to score high in the "wears make-up and hairspray with panache," "would do well at grandma’s for coffee," and "by gosh! I just trust him!" categories, while deftly (paranoically, that is) avoiding the modern-day political widowmaker, the lethal sound-bite. But the two contestants were in top form: "Unlike this man, I have a strong plan: I will use half of the surplus to maintain social security, half to rebuild our destitute military, and half will go back to the American people in tax cuts! The vice president is not prepared to make such a promise!" "What the governor doesn’t tell you is that my plan helps the average American. At the back of this room is Jon Schnellschnecke. Jon is an honest man who tragically lost both parents, but he refused to let that get him down. He worked hard and recently won an Olympic gold medal in the 2,225-meter pole vault. But under the governor’s plan, because Jon was not a major campaign contributor, he will receive no help in paying for performance-enhancing drugs and will eventually have to burn his gold medal to keep warm." At this point the moderator must have been poked by a bipartisan hatpin and steered the discussion away from drugs, lest viewers realize that the candidates are still trying to atone for their own drug-related sins by putting everybody else on death row. Mostly, though, the two men represented the extremes of our political spectrum: "I feel the sanctions against Iraq are not strong enough." "No, I feel they are not strong enough. We haven’t seen nearly enough Iraqui children die." "Well, I feel there should be background checks for buying guns but no permits." "That’s my position, governor!" "No, you’re the governor. I’m the one for no permits for guns and responsible environmental policy." "But that’s what I was going to say." In the end, the mighty media judges weighed in and actually gave Bush high marks for not losing his train of thought or mispronouncing big words (lowering the bar for him in a way his own education plan will not allow for any schoolchild). And both candidates were praised for being cordial and not attacking each other much. Sounds like what I hear about my two-year-old after play-group: "He was good, got along well with the others, and didn’t bite." I’m not quite sure I have much sympathy for Ralph Nader, who made a big fuss because he was barred from even entering the building at the first debate—he obviously did not read the sign outside: "Play area only for children aged 5 and younger." If Nader had been in the debate, with his knowledge of, and respect for, facts, he would have ruined everything. And when Gush and Bore insisted they were dedicated to getting big business money out of politics, Nader would have lost it: "That’s it! Out! Out! Everybody out of the pool!" That’s when we’d all have realized that little Albert and Georgie had been peeing in the water. Fortunately, the Presidential Debate Commission is safeguarding our democracy by keeping anyone whose soul does not look like a Formula 1 racer’s jacket far from the eyes of the consu... I mean "of the people." Nader would have also confused the poor GQ aliens, who finally felt they had figured out what these debates were about: "Come watch, it’s The Deception Game again!" It will all soon be over. The media will set the bar for the final event at an improbable height. Obsessed with the "I think he’s human" category, where, despite publicly kissing his wife (or maybe because of it), Gore will have yet to score (where’s Bill when you need him?), the vice president will miss his jump. Bush, instead, powered by his deep dedication to helping average Americans, and his commitment to the environment and education, will make it: "He clears one foot two inches! And George W. Bush will be the next president of the United States of America!" The Galaxy Quest aliens will switch to Nickelodeon for some accurate "historical records," which will be a saving grace for our planet’s reputation. Al’s flair for human interest stories will land him a job as an announcer at the 2002 Winter Olympics. And until then, the national media will go back to telling us that corporate globalization is our best friend; that without a missile shield (that by definition is failsafe), the U.S. is rolling naked through thistle fields toward a precipice; that it’s a moral imperative to machine-gun down any Arab holding a stone; that genetically engineered foods are perfectly safe—but, of course, they will be praying for another high-profile sex scandal, or war, or something with that magnitude of human suffering. The American people will continue their day-to-day lives, trying to make ends meet. But perhaps we will have greater knowledge of who we are as a nation and as a species, which brings us back to Confusions, who always said: "To know yourself is to know your enemy."
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