And now someone’s dead.
Russell Armstrong, the flinty, irritating husband of Taylor Armstrong–of the perfectly toned arms and mile-wide smile from The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills–apparently killed himself last night. He was found hanging in a bedroom of their Mullholland Drive home. By all reports, his life was a mess: his wife had filed for divorce, he was in massive debt, he was being sued to the tune of $1.5 million, he very well could have been just a high class grifter, not the “venture capitalist” he claimed. He might even have been an abuser. (There are reports he shoved Taylor and perhaps abused his first wife.) Not a nice guy, clearly, as anyone who watched the show can attest. He was socially awkward, cold—even downright mean–to his melancholic, grasping, pseudo-glamorous wife, testy and judgmental towards everyone around him. But one quote in a Reuters article really struck me. “This (TV) show has literally pushed us to the limit,” he told People Magazine.
So is the show—the harsh reflected light of this reality TV fame—in some way responsible? Like a magnifying glass on an ant, did it set this flame? And moreover, are we, the viewers, partly responsible for this real-life nightmare, too? Obviously, Russell Armstrong was a troubled person and probably not a very nice one. But as the audience to his downward spiral of a life, whose Nielsen numbers makes a series like The Real Housewives even possible, did we aid and abet this sad little crime?
I remember when Survivor started. It was the first, massive hit in the “reality” genre. A true game changer on the face of the television landscape. I was working in TV development at the time, resolutely dedicated to scripted programming (as I remain), but when I read the guidelines for appearing on the Swedish import and the subsequent “rules” of the “game”, I had to admit: that’s some clever shit right there. And so I watched, that first year, along with the rest of America. But by the end of the season, as everyone got more and more excited by the ascendancy of the neo-Sydney Greenstreet, Richard Hatch—equal parts portly and dastardly—I started to get a sick feeling in my stomach. Television—the art form (yes, I said it) I so loved, the story telling mechanism like no other, the premier form of American entertainment—was curdling in front of my eyes. People on the show were actually miserable, not acting miserable. Struggling. Put in awful positions. We were getting entertainment value, I realized, out of watching people engage their worst human impulses. Maybe Survivor wasn’t the first example of this ever on television, but it was the most vivid one, for me. I never watched the show again.
Now, eleven years on, Survivor seems almost quaint. Reality TV has exploded, all over the television landscape—all over the American culture landscape—to be a dynamic, undeniable part of our world. From Nick Lachy to Kim Kardashian, from Snooki to Jill Zarin; these are actual names of actual “celebrities” that we actually know. And I’m not immune (far from it)—though I wish I was. In a hotel room in Vermont, circadian rhythms gone wonky with jet lag, I found myself getting sucked into—of all things–Rock of Love. Which I then continued to watch for its three season run. (Even—shame on me–Rock of Love Bus) I had literally never heard of Bret Michaels—I had to Google him that night in Stowe—but I found some crazy, sick fascination with the show; with Bret’s odd mix of utterly shallow and strangely charming, with the icky, surgically enhanced pulchritude of all the women, matched only by their lack of shame and social intelligence. I couldn’t stop watching, mouth agape, in that rubbernecking, ogling a train wreck kind of way.
And then there was the Real Housewives of Orange County. I resisted it at first, but somehow got sucked into that too. These were people I would never, ever socialize with in real life—in fact found generally repulsive—but still, I got caught up in their ups and downs, petty fights and arguments, horrific marriages, terrible taste in home décor and hideous beaded tank tops. I continued watching other versions of the franchise—namely New York City—though I knew—knew, with every fiber of my being—that the shows were not only shallow, uninformative, and contrived; they were probably actually dangerous. They were sucking out my points of my IQ, and a little bit of my soul, minute by fake, shiny, minute.
Part of the fascination, I think, is in wondering: why in hell would anyone subject their lives to this scrutiny? To cameras at their lunches, to these faux friendships and feuds, to Teamsters watching them have “an intimate moment” with their husband? (Their actual, real life husband, not an actor “playing” their husband.) Why in the world would anyone want their life—or some semi “scripted” simulacrum of it–to be broadcast to the world? Why would anyone want to be famous this badly? (I don’t even have a picture of myself on Facebook, for fear people might actually, you know, find me.)
Reality shows, clearly, have contributed to real human tragedy—we all know how Richard Hatch turned out, the numerous divorces, broken “friendships”, and now this death. So why would anyone continue to line up to be a part of it? (You know they will.) What’s at the root of this American obsession with fame? Why do so many of us want to be famous more than we want to be smart, or good, or even successful or—god forbid—happy? Why do we think fame—even the sour, manufactured version of fame these shows provide–will somehow make us happy? Particularly when all evidence points to the contrary?
I don’t have any answers to any of this. But I do know that my love/hate relationship with these shows has now tipped into real revulsion. I have a friend who swore off the Real Housewives franchise last year and as the reality show that I actually watch with (some) regularity, I may not be far behind. Yes, there’s still a strange, sick fascination with it. With Russell Armstrong’s suicide, clearly the second season of Beverly Hills (already shot, apparently, and set to air in the Fall) will provide even more queasy, “entertaining” frisson. But enjoying watching something because it’s appalling–because the “characters” within it are appalling–somehow feels like an even more corrupt choice than it did before. I should do better.
I’m not the first person to exhibit concern that these shows are somehow the point of the spear of the end of American “civilization” as we know it, nor will I be the last. They’re the candy of pop culture; not good for you, even can make you sick while you’re consuming them, but clearly delicious and certainly addictive. We can all tell ourselves, bilious after eating a box of peanut M&Ms at the movies: never again. But a few days, weeks, months later: damn, that Toblerone looks good. None of us are perfect—I’m certainly not—and I may crack and have some Real Housewives chocolate at some point. I am starting to feel though, that the shows aren’t just ruining the lives of the people on them (now quite literally; I can’t imagine what’s ahead for the Armstrong’s daughter) and they’re not harmless one-offs we can work through our system by eating only kale the next day. In some subtle, insidious, incremental way, these shows–and the culture of these shows–are truly ruining us too. They’re lowering our standards. And not just lowering our standards about what passes for entertainment. But about what passes for our own humanity, too.
