VIRTUAL REALITY TV

[ WARNING:  This essay is written in over-the-top American English.... If you do not like this "style," please don't give up reading the rest of the Blog, which is written in more reader-friendly English to communicate clearly! ]

The mega-blockbusters, “American Idol,” “Dancing with the Stars,” “So You Think You Can Dance,” and “America’s Got Talent” are the Titanics of TV, except they have happy American success-story endings and never sink, unlike America.

“The Voice” invented revolutionary hideously-designed spinning chairs and a beyond-silly singing wrestling ring. It also recognizes excellence, and, unlike some shows, has a beating non-plastic heart.  Of course, unlike Japanese and Mexican boy bands, Idol-with-Chairs contestants don’t have to be tortured into sleeping with Blake or Adam to further their careers. And there are plenty of non-black straight guys who like exaggerated Hispanic rears. “Voice” has a lot to offer everyone, even vicariously.

“X-Factor” (Fallen Idol), stars fallen Simon (not so interesting or believably evil the second time around), a revolving dispensable cast of judges, and Antonio, who, fortunately for P.C. demographics, is a darker color.

The other dozen or so ego-bloated mutations of basic reality shows -- featuring occasionally brilliant paper/vegetable/fabric inférieure-couture seamstresses, honest Mother Teresa handymen, crying CEOs mingling with (a few) of their serfs, proud sequestered millionaires descending to post-apocalyptic streets to hand out petty cash -- are soap-operatic art films.

The nasty imperial boss, screaming psychotic cook, and vampire models are war movies, while their desperate copies - hair, make-up, cake, wedding gown, entrepreneur vs. capitalist - are sad fast-food. The four charming guys with queer eyes were exotic alien dessert, but luckily for family values, we don’t have to worry about them anymore.

In 1984-speak, these Reality shows, along with the oppressive S&M bottom-of-the barrel hits: survival of the fittest sleazebag, racing colonialists, vicarious celebrators of our own pure greed, and the assorted male and female prostitute love-arcades, all act out violations of the 10 Commandments. They constitute popular culture.

If one, such as a misanthrope godless humanist, wants to prove the worst (and best) attributes of our species, just watch TV reality shows, with cop series and sit-coms as chasers. The visionary arsenic cynicism of TV “created-by” inventors is as acidic as Gekko 1, though more populist and user-friendly.

The desperate singing, dancing, and performing for Day of the Locust depression audiences is a continuation of Roman gladiator spectacles for the kill-crowd, with dedicated judges in the roles of soon-extinct Caesar, Nero, and Cleopatra.

Each show adheres to the Formula (if it ain’t broken, don’t fix it, add bling): a caring faceless judge (Carrie Ann, Kara, Nicole, Demi, Original Randy); a warm-hearted leacher who doesn’t turn-on contestants (New Randy), everybody’s fantasy Mother (Sharon), a mature/over-ripe, anti-social, and/or tough sadistic Father (Simon, Nigel, Len, Howard, Piers) - mostly British, because we are under the self-delusion that Brits are better educated than Americans, with more heart than the nasty French; and a clown on the verge of an over-acted mental breakdown (Bruno, ex-Paula, ex-David, Britney, Howie, Bloody Mary).

Zombie sex siren Jennifer and zombie hippie Steven didn’t revive zombie “Idol,” but they were really sweet, and who doesn’t want to sleep with Scotty Idol and the newer generation Idols?…They’re blandly safe.

The most important and precise word left by Yiddish, the nearly extinct Holocaust language, is shtick. Judges on reality shows all have their shticks perfected, as do the top 10-11 contestants. The others frantically try to find the right shtick in time. America demands it. Without shticks and laws, there would only be unique individuals with personal integrity, leading to anarchy (and as now green Marx would theorize, overthrowing the puppet governments of those really in power).

Poster provocateur Simon is the kid who pulled wings off flies, advanced to swinging cats against walls, and became a soldier sodomizing Muslims, before retiring to beat up his wife and children.

Len and Nigel are stern schoolmarms (CeeLo, a panda) who fantasize being transvestites. but at least they know and care about their students, and are passionately committed to excellence.

Clown judges and clown performers are thrown in to lighten the grave life-or-death proceedings: “All I’ve ever dreamed of in life is to be a singer, dancer, star, astronaut, fireman!” “I am great (nobody loves me)! I am the best (jobless)!” “I WILL be #1 (despite Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, China)!” “I want it!”

Customers get to pay to vote as many times as the lines can handle, giving them democratic mastery of enough taste to crown a monarch, though Jimmy Carter has never supervised voting to keep it honest.  

Reality shows are legal narcotics -- cheaper addictions than crack, cigarettes, fast food, womanizing, or making billions – and less likely to kill innocent victims than alcohol, street gangs, and the military.

I’m addicted.

I enjoy good shticks and non-threatening rituals, but all I really care deeply about in these shows are the “Queen for a Day” back-stories, and the very real exposed vulnerability…90-seconds of a human being actually trying to do their best in slovenly, self-pitying, blaming modern America. I don’t care if competitors are good, bad, or terrible. I am engrossed in those very brief moments of Truth, like a starving cow with a heavenly clump of grass in Death Valley.

But the marketing gods have polled the pulse of the nation and determined that what we all really want is to follow the Golden Brick Road to VEGAS!!! (not Las Vegas, that’s too Mexican). So the host machines are programmed to announce every contestant, introduce every weekly episode, every commercial break (out and in), as if it is the Rapture (or 911, or a catastrophic drizzle on the weekend).

Deftly pandering Ryan and Nick talk down to the cheering spectators like children, which the loudest screamers are. Ryan is the better actor, giving the appearance of actually listening to the hopefuls he interviews. Nick works too hard to be perpetually cheerful and (middle-class) black, mouthing clichéd words of distracted empathy, while seeming to be always rehearsing what he’ll say next.

Does Carson exist? He casts no shadow.

Only Tom steadfastly maintains his self-respect and actually appears to care about the contestants he commiserates with, adlibbing refreshing darts of dry humor fearlessly at the judges. Queen Cat holds her own on the boisterous tavern dance floor. Bored live bands loop rousing sport themes to invigorate the crowds that are eerily similar to lynch mobs.

It turns my stomach…the crass manipulation of authenticity to sell a Coke, the utter disrespect of both the contestants and the audience. I gorge and purge each show, feeling disgusted with myself. But at least I can join 100 million of my intimate brothers and sisters in the weekly excess. It’s quite a relief from typhoons, earthquakes, car crashes, drive-bys, unemployment, foreclosures, suicide bombers, and the massacre of protestors. For a few moments (15 TV-hours a week), I connect with other good-hearted desperate human beings like myself.

Stir together this witch’s cauldron of 1-D reality shows, 3-D gross-out flicks, rapist rappers, tactile strippers, steroid heroes, cataclysm video games, Tweets, SMSs, YouTubes (MeTubes), and what do you get… Entertainment? The end of the world? Buddhahood? Only God knows, and we’re still trying to find out who he/she/it is, and how to communicate.