The first ever reality TV show I ever saw was Big Brother. I used to watch it with my grandma and complain during the commercials because I didn’t think the show was interesting. By the twenty-minute mark I was enthralled by what was going on in the house. Midway through the season I could tell you the bio of all of the characters and even update you on what you’d missed. I was hooked and I couldn’t really figure out why. Now I know. It was because I was obsessed with the drama, and was convinced that everything that was happening was real. There was yelling and laughing and cursing, and it was always interesting to see who was mad at who and who was sleeping with who, or who was cursing at who, though they always bleeped out the good parts. Or at least tried to.
When I looked back and compared those old episodes to what’s shown on TV now, I’m amazed with what’s allowed to pass for acceptable. Never would they show a man punching out a woman and sell it as entertainment. And what’s the point of even attempting to bleep out anything anymore when, like Franklin mentions in Jersey Jetsam, the bleeps have been reduced and clear aural outlines of the words are there to assist us in lip reading? Not to mention the close ups that some lucky cameraman just happens to procure at just the right moment to make sure the audience can get the meaning loud and clear. Where are the standards?
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