Realitization

History, according to Karl Marx repeats itself--first as tragedy, second as farce.  Television, too, repeats itself (and we're not talking about what used to be the summer season and syndication): First as scripted drama, second as reality show.

From an economic perspective, it makes sense.  Why pay writers to construct situation comedies when you can simply throw a bunch of wackily mismatched strangers together and see what hijinks ensue?  Thus "The Brady Bunch" becomes "The Real World" becomes "Big Brother," and thus "Gilligan's Island" becomes "Survivor" (and then, in an odd shift back to scripting, becomes "Lost," but that's a discussion for another day). 

What's interesting is the number of shows and genres that have now been "realitized."  Indeed, the Discovery Channel has created a whole franchise of networks devoted to the concept.

Love medical dramas?  Check out "Discovery Health."  Tonight, in an episode entitled "Unlikely Suspects": "After a man fails to show up for work, a friend searches his house and finds him splayed out lifeless on the bedroom floor.  And, a disoriented man is treated for a drug overdose at a hospital ER.  He doesn't sober up, and dies later at the hospital."  "Quincy, M.E."?  Nope, "Dr G.: Medical Examiner."  And a little later, if you're still grieving over the end of "E.R.," perhaps "Trauma--Life in the E.R." will. . . cheer you up?

If mystery is more your thing, you can check out "ID"--"Investigation Discovery."  There, you can supplement your viewing of "CSI" or "NCIS" or any number of police procedurals with "Extreme Forensics" or "The Real NCIS" (a bit on the nose, that) or "The Shift" (which follows the detectives of the Indianapolis Homicide Department).  WOS, who's always been interested in forensics and administration of justice, watches a lot of these "true crime" shows, and they do certainly provide an instructive look at real-world law enforcement.

(Digression: Couldn't someone come up with a reality-version of "Star Trek"?  THAT would be cool.  EOD)

The problem with all these programs, ironically, is that they trivialize the very dramas they depict.

Television shows and movies (that is, fictional television shows and movies) are often criticized for glorifying violence and numbing audiences to the real suffering caused by crime.  At its best, though, fictional drama creates an empathetic bond with its characters.  Thus, "The Wire" made us understand the human toll of drug violence and other ills of modern urban life better than any number of true-crime police procedurals.  "Oz," while no doubt over the top, made us empathize with hardcore prisoners while we never forgot that these were for the most part bad (in the moral sense) characters.  Even "E.R.," with its impossibly good-looking staff of heroic doctors, provided viewers with a weekly glimpse of the chaos that resides at the boundary between life and death.

Fiction strips away the extraneous, highlights the relevant, and in doing so provokes the thought and insight that allow us to make sense of the world.  Realitization, in contrast, cheapens the tragedy by turning real-life victims of gruesome crimes, horrific accidents, or the ravages of disease as mere fodder for a network schedule.  They are presented to us not through the ennobling dialogue of skillful dramatists but rather through second-hand accounts and awkward re-enactments.

Truth is stranger than fiction.  Which is precisely why we need fiction to help us make sense of truth.  Without fiction we are left with nothing but the senselessness that we all, deep down, know lies beneath modern life.  Realitization is the ultimate trivializer.