LessThanZero

One way someone can really piss me off – and as you all know, there are many ways – is to talk shit about reality television. I never thought I would say that, but there, I said it. I’ve lost interest in guys for doing it, I’ve walked away from people at cocktail parties, and I’ve gotten in heated debates over the artistic merits of Jersey Shore. But you guys understand, you’re fans.

However, I think there is still a huge misconception that reality television is not “reality,” that it’s actually all scripted, that it’s cheap and tawdry, that it’s – here’s my favorite – FAKE.

Yes, a lot of the reality shows out there are trashy (and Two and a Half Men is…what, our generation’s Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood?) and filled with famewhores, and yes, there are a lot of trashy, sleazy reality producers out there.  (Never mind the fact that reality television really encompasses far more than Jersey Shore and Real Housewives – it’s Dirty Jobs, it’s Mythbusters, it’s Modern Marvels. It’s non-scripted television.)

All the horror stereotypes about Hollywood?  They’re all pretty much true.   I watched Swimming with Sharks around 2003, when I first moved to LA, and thought, ‘Hell, that’s not that bad. I can handle that, I’ve got a self-loathing complex!’   When I watched the movie again last year after being laid off, I threw up because it was like watching the trauma I had lived through working for these crazy people played out on screen.  The reality of the cool factor and the glitz and glam of working in the industry is a lot more gut-wrenching than when you’re just a casual observer.

So all the bullshit is true, but that goes for most people and things – people are just kinda trashy. (And we love it.)   Warhol was right: In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes. Guess what: the future is now.

My dad always said there are three sides to every story: yours, mine, and the truth.   How many more sides emerge when you’ve got 3 cameras on you and your friend is mic’d across town so you can hear everything going on?   A whole new story can be revealed, pieced together – created.   Sometimes enlightening, sometimes mean-spirited…but that’s part and parcel of life itself.

As for reality show secrets, well, I don’t think I have any that you guys aren’t already in on.*   But let me reiterate this point – it’s not fake, it’s just planned out (tomato, tomahto).  It’s a version of reality.  (And, that’s not to say that “unplanned” stuff doesn’t happen all the time, and make an even better show.)  Think about your life even when it was its most exciting ever – be honest with yourself.  The day to day was still pretty mundane, wasn’t it?   And Yahweh doesn’t care about sweeps week, does He!   So if you want your life to be a reality show, we’re going to have to do some creative sculpting.  It’s still really happening to you, you’re still wheeling and dealing and breaking up and making up and getting 10 surgeries in one day.  It’s still real.   It just may not be the raw, unadulterated truth.  It’s entertainment – and it’s real.  It’s just one version of reality – a producer’s version, created to fill a demographic need.

Take Keeping Up with the Kardashians, for example.   Great example of a show people generally believe to be “scripted”.   And it’s true that most of that show is planned out ahead of time – that’s the thing though, you kind of have to do it.  So here’s how it goes.   Four weeks (or whatever the network has allotted for pre-production), before they start shooting, story producers sit down with the Kardashians for quite some time, and the Kardashians tell them everything going on right now.  “Well Scott’s in recovery, so that’s great, we’re smoothing things over.”   “Kim is turning 30, she’s definitely going to have a big 30th bash in Vegas.”   “But Scott of course will NOT be going after what happened last year.”  “Khloe and Lamar are gonna buy a house soon.”   “Bruce and Kris have been bitching at each other a lot because Kris wishes she was 27.”  Based on all the shit that’s actually going on, story producers craft the season, figuring out the long-term story arc as well as all the little story arcs within each episode.   So ok, they say, Scott’s not drinking anymore and he was a dick to a waiter in Vegas last year and Kris doesn’t want him at the party this year.   What if Scott flies out, realizes he can’t handle it, and flies back to New York that night?   Everything that’s already happening is synthesized and put together in a way that makes sense and in a way that ups the drama factor so viewers are into it.   And voila, you have 12 episodes.   It’s a version of reality, but it’s still reality…because what is really real when there are at minimum three sides to every story?

But we all have our own versions of reality, don’t we?  Every time we relay a story to someone, every time we talk about someone in our lives, every time we create a narrative – we’re creating our very own reality television show.   (And thanks to Steve Jobs, we can all have our very own soundtracks, too.  And thanks to Facebook, and Tumblr, and Twitter, and Youtube, we can all find our very own audience.  Who’s your demographic?)   We are each the suffering hero of our own one-man play, and your concept of your role in my life may not be the actual role you’re playing in my life.

So we’re all a bunch of little reality television shows running around in this great small world of ours – just because yours hasn’t been picked up for a cable run yet doesn’t mean it’s any more real than those that have.

*Oh, you wanted juicy stories?   Hmmm, well, let’s see…yes, Curtis Stone is that good-looking in real life…I learned I’m actually about a 4 on the Kinsey Scale after the casting calls for one show I created…James Caan stuck his tongue down my throat after a meeting once (a meeting I was explicitly told I was only invited to so that James would have something good to look at)…Eddie Nash hung up on me after I managed to find his unlisted number…the coolest person I’ve ever met doing this was with Charles Spencer, Lady Diana’s brother (huge history buff)…any time there’s a shitty title of a show, BLAME THE NETWORK…Leonardo DiCaprio does a great DeNiro…Tucker Max called me a cunt after I asked him how the failed comedy pilot was doing at Comedy Central…and when I was 24 I was told that I would never work in this town again.