We’ve all heard about the reality show “star” who allegedly killed and dismembered his wife (a marriage that lasted from March to May of this year before it was annulled). The wife’s body was identified by the serial numbers on her breast implants.
Interesting piece in the NYT about the apparently willful lack of screening on the part of the production staffs of these shows.
Now, I can’t pretend that I don’t watch reality TV avidly – esp. since I’m the OP in about have the threads started on these shows. I don’t have cable, though, so I’ve never seen a single episode of any of the VH1 shows, and, frankly, I doubt I’d watch them if I could – I like the “classy” shows. (Well, plus The Bachelor, though not every season, really.) Even the “classy” shows, however, rely on a certain number of assholes to keep things entertaining – let’s face it, it was Coach (who, although a loon, wasn’t an aggressive one) that made the most recent season of Survivor so wonderfully entertaining.
Whaddya think, fellow reality fans – are we complicit in this in some way, by demanding bad behavior in the name of entertainment?
This is slight off topic, but when I originally heard that the ex wife was “mutilated” I thought, huh, he probably slashed her face or beat her face until the bone were broken, maybe damaged the rest of her body. But to have to be identified not with fingerprints but the serial numbers on breast implants - that is a very scary level of “mutilation”. NOT a guy you want to surprise in a dark alley.
More on topic: while better screening will help keep some of the whackos off the reality shows, the bitter truth is that NO screening program is going to keep all the dangerous people away. After all, this sort of person presumably has zero inhibitions about lying to disguise their past and their intentions.
Let’s remember that there really is only ONE person responsible for murder here - and that is the murderer. The reality show producers may or may not be entertainment world scum, but THEY committed no crime.
They want the wackoes don’t they? When it started it was a case of put some people together and see what happens. You can do that once but if they are reasonably normal people not much is going to happen. Of course absolutely normal people would not volunteer so there is certain to be a bit of oddity. But they’ve increasingly chosen people on the basis of being incompatible and as hopefully egotistical and wacko as possible and given them their instructions to stir things up. It’s all just a freak show.
I’ve never been able to find watching people I despise/ have no respect for entertaining, so the only reality shows I could ever stomach are the competition shows in which talent is actually being evaluated, and the egos and catfights aren’t the point (so basically, just Top Chef Masters). It doesn’t surprise me at all that, sooner or later, one of the miserable, selfish excuses for humanity they center these shows around would go postal.
Of course, what’s worse is that this kind of tragedy will, in all likelihood, only further increase viewership of the show’s next season. :smack:
The problem with this guy is, according to the article, they picked a guy who’d been convicted of being violent against women to go on a dating show. :smack: I understand they want kind of “off” people to provide drama, but that’s tough to excuse.
As an aside, he was originally from Calgary, which is only two hours north of my location. This story has been getting a great deal of media attention locally, as there is a worry that he will head home. US and Canadian border officials are watching carefully, and police in their respective countries are working together–if he turns up back home in Canada, he won’t find a safe haven.
I’m not a big reality show fan, but I see them as more like game shows than anything else. If you want to play the game, and qualify to do so (write the tests, do the interviews, play the practice game, whatever), then you get to play the game. I think that’s about the extent of what the show producers should get into when selecting contestants–I don’t see it as their responsibility to do much else. Of course, all contestants should be made aware of the risks of the game, including the screening (or lack of it) that other contestants have undergone, but it would seem to me that there is a limit as to how far the producers can go in investigating wannabe-contestants.
I like Whale Wars, Wife Swap and Top Chef. There are others that are cool like Ice Road Truckers and Deadliest Catch, I just don’t watch those. Basically on none of those shows is the point to cause people to have drama. On Top Chef there is no more drama than you’d expect in a competition where the competitors have to live with one another for a while. On Wife Swap there is an effort to make people uncomfortable but usually it’s about the life lesson and a lot of the results are quite heartwarming, the anal retentive Mom loosening up and the Mom who doesn’t clean at all deciding she likes a clean house.
Usually I just assume that if it’s on VH1 or MTV it’s a bunch of BS. But I watched Juvies on MTV and it was really interesting seeing these kids dealing with the state and the drama that involved their parents. One kid just really really wanted to go live with his Dad and not his psycho Mom. He was released to the Father, which I thought was a good thing based on the tiny bit of info I got from the show itself.
Reality TV is cool in that it gets us a window into the wider world that we live in, and most reality shows really are about giving us that window. Some of them of course are the Real World model where it’s all about drama, or the Survivor model where there is some contrived drama in the form of voting people off of the island.
It’s amazing that even here where we are supposed to be fighting ignorance people still pass off this kind of ignorant crap. ;p
Reality TV is basically documentary style stuff for the most part, sure there is a big subgenre of contrived drama, but that’s not even the bulk of it.
I’m not getting why the tv shows are somehow culpable for not screening these people better. There was that guy a few years ago who was on the Power Rangers who tied that couple to the anchor on their own boat and threw them overboard. Are the Power Rangers somehow responsible for not screening him? Are the Buffalo Bills somehow responsible for Nicole Simpson’s death? I don’t think the kind of “bad behavior” desirable in a reality show contestant can in any way be compared to brutal murder and mutilation.
And is it every job’s responsibility to dig into your history? The only jobs I’ve ever had that did a background check on me were in the financial industry, and they were looking for things like theft, fraud, etc. And then I just don’t think you can test for crazy.
I would assume it was fairly obvious given the tone and context of the conversation that I’m not implying Bear Grylls, the survivorman or those sweaty high-speed chef guys are serial killers waiting to happen.
What I am referring to, however, is the scripted engineered glurge of ‘reality’ shows that infest channels like MTV and VH1. Shows that follow title formats like Who Wants to <blank> A <blank>??! Or feature guys with higher bodyfat percentages than IQs chasing top-heavy incoherently squealing make-up caked bimbo-hos in some pathetic facade at normal social interaction.
These sort of shows often feature ‘contestants’ that are petty, shallow, selfish, narcissistic and ruthlessly goal-driven. They then deliberately throw gasoline on the conflagration with promises of love, romance and fame and fortune. And some alcohol, too.
You’re really claiming you don’t see sociopathic elements at play? Maybe I’m blinded with ignorance.
ETA: I’m not saying the producers should be held liable in any fashion. Superficial charm is precisely what they want, and sociopaths have it down pat.
I do see your point, I just always wanted to use that line.
But generally people use the term, ‘Reality Television’ as though it’s only what you describe. Clearly there are hundreds of shows that don’t fit that mold.
I agree with you about those shows and would have agreed with you before this happened. It didn’t surprise me in the least. I watched a whole season of the show, “I Love New York”, and watched her give up the guy who she had a real connection with for the guy who was willing to kiss her ass. The guy she had a connection with hated the other guy for being fake and superficial, and he basically broke down how it was going to go. After the season was over it went down exactly as the other guy had described. To me the tragedy of that show was not so much if someone never found love in that format, but if they actually did find love and the format got in the way.
Survivorman and a few other shows are in their own category. Whale Wars and Deadliest Catch might not be as low as “I Love Money”, but if you think the producers of those shows aren’t seriously playing up the drama, then I’ve got this bridge that you’d just adore.
What drama is being played up in Whale Wars and Deadliest Catch? They both are people performing dangerous jobs. Past the obvious directorial points like soundtrack, clever editing and the narration, how exactly do you think the audience is being manipulated by the producers? I honestly don’t see anything that’s not being done in your average documentary.
What drama is being played up? Man. That bridge-span might be a pretty good deal, you know.
Both shows are full of ominous And Then After This Dramatic Build Up, Suddenly!, A -<commercial break> Completely Mundane Thing Happens! schemes. An ‘average documentary’ is probably going to spend less time building up to a false crescendo when a slightly-larger-than-average wave sloshes across the deck and more time, you know, following the actual logistics and day-to-day life of Whale Saving/Crab Fishing/Exterminating Bugs/Cutting Down Trees.
Some of these new-fangled ‘watch shitty blue-collar jobs’ shows are decent, and I do enjoy me some Survivorman. But for the most part, the Reality format at best, bores me to tears and more frequently (as in, unfortunately, I Love New York) makes me throw up in my mouth a little as I try to reach the remote before the convulsions set in.
That’s pretty much what I said. I guess the way Cisco phrased it he made it sound like there was some kind of sublety going on rather than the totally and completely obvious cheese like “The World is a Vampire” on Whale Wars.
LOL I Love New York is absolutely trash, but I don’t have a problem with the format overall. It’s infotainment, you know, like the News, only more realistic.
He turned up dead in Hope, B.C. today. (Hope is a nasty little hole, with apologies to any hypothetical Hope Dopers. What am I apologizing for? You live there, you know. It’s good enough to be found dead in, anyway.)
I don’t think the kind of “bad behavior” desirable in a reality show contestant can in any way be compared to brutal murder and mutilation.