Reality Bits (Network Sluttery Edition)

Apologies to anyone who's noticed my absence. I am currently on set and it's slightly harder to ponder the malignant entity called Reality TV when you have a cast member threatening to bust open your head. Onwards and downwards...

1) The Donald Trump Show Finds a Cast (Finally!)

Donald Trump has been branded the Reality candidate for the GOP nomination. What makes Trump good Reality Talent is that he knows how to create a soundbite. When we're editing shows with people like Trump they make it easy for us in edit because we get to pick and choose between provocative sound bites and then play them against a stunned or angry or upset reaction shot from someone else in the cast.

However, as I mentioned in an earlier blog, the GOP nomination race has yet to "rise" to a level of a Reality show because the other robots running aren't giving him any reactions to work with. Besides, let's face it, Trump is simply the pimple on top of the festering Republican sore. However, it seems that the TV news media has proven willing to step in.

Reporters (television, but also online and so-called print for that matter) are filling in the role of the horrified or thrilled recipients of his blather. And much like Reality cast members they spend an undue amount of time having discussions about the meaning of his latest offense/genius. In Reality we call those "fallout scenes" and they tend to happen in fancy bars/restaurants. The only difference here is the fallout scenes happen on news sets.

CNN is The Scandalized Innocent!
FOX is The Enabler!
Lindsay Graham is Once a Bestie, Now a Backstabber!

So I stand corrected, the GOP nomination is a Reality show attempting to pass itself off as news. The amplification of his fuckery doesn't strike me as news.

2) Emotional Anchors

The fact is, there isn't much different between Reality TV and the television news these days. In fact, I was struck during the coverage of the Paris attacks at the number of CNN reporters who were obviously faking sadness/tears about the events. Clearly they have been given direction from on high that emotion sells. Who knows, it may, I'm not a good sample audience.  

I find this stuff infuriating because while genuine emotional moments (Cronkite crying upon learning of Kennedy's death and Jon Stewart being overcome after 9/11, come to mind) make for powerful television, fake emotion is just shite and offensive to my intelligence as a viewer, not to mention a Reality producer - fake tears are the absolute worst when you're in edit.

3) Digging the Duggars and the (broadcaster) Benefits of a Police Shooting

TLC, as has been discussed before, has never encountered a molestation scandal that they don't view ripe fodder for ratings. The first part of TLC's special on Josh Duggar's sisters Jill and Jessa, who were also his molestation victims, airs December 13. I would provide a link, but fuck TLC I'm not promoting them. Instead I give you this. 

The leadup to Jill & Jessa: Counting On has been an interview on Good Morning America with Josh's long-suffering wife Anna, as well as appearances of the two sisters. Blech. Naturally, TLC's numbers for this dreck will be through the roof.

The ends to which networks will go to mine controversy in the name of numbers is ever expanding. I recently heard tell of a show where the network seized upon the controversy over the police shooting of Laquan McDonald in Chicago as a great "opportunity" (and I quote) for one of their shows.

Pardon me, but after this post I need to take several showers.

#TCA16

Fear and Loathing in Reality TV: Development Edition

"Fear is the mind-killer.” George Herbert, Dune. 

"Our fears are like dragons guarding our most precious treasure." Rainer Maria Rilke.

After the attacks in Paris, Beirut, Bamaco, Tunis (and counting), there’s a fair amount of fear around these days. Fear can be handy if you’re a politician. George Bush used it to motivate a war against Iraq, a secular country that didn’t attack America, while choosing to ignore Wahhabist Saudi Arabia from whence Bin Laden and most of the hijackers hailed. Now cohorts in his party are using it to reject the refugees they produced by fucking up that war. It seems that fear can be wielded to justify just about anything. 

But fear also informs the decisions we think we’re making freely. Specifically the stupid/destructive ones. It is certainly rampant in every aspect of Reality television production; its prevalence is so all-encompassing that to do it justice I will serialize this discussion. Let’s call it: Fear and Loathing in Reality TV. For the purposes of this exercise I’ll walk you through the development, production and edit of a hypothetical Reality show called, The Rarin’ Oliveris.

PART ONE: DEVELOPMENT

The story starts, as must any story of this ilk, with the owner of a Production Company—we'll call him Bob—and, because Bob is that kind of guy, his company’s named Bob’s Your Uncle Productions. Bob's actually a pretty insecure guy. He doesn't have a whole lot of experience in the industry, and started the company with money from his in-laws, who refinanced their home. Bob sold a series last year which kept things afloat, but until (when!) that gets renewed he needs to keep selling. He needs to make his overhead.

Now, while most people not in the industry assume networks and cable channels produce their own shows, this is not the case. Companies like Bob’s Your Uncle pitch show ideas to networks. When a network buys a show, they basically provide the pitching production company with the budget to produce it.  

Bob recently found out that let's say TLC is looking for family-oriented shows: stuff with a heart but also a twist. Like, say, the Duggars, without the molestation. As luck would have it, Bob knows just such a family: the Oliveris of Staten Island. The Oliveris have a family rock 'n roll band that plays gigs around New Jersey. Mom plays keyboard, daughter plays drums, son shakes a mean tambourine, and dad takes lead vocals. Outside of being a band, though, they're a regular, very tight-knit family. 

Bob's nervous. Any money he uses to shoot what we call a sizzle reel is wasted if it doesn't sell. Still, TLC's looking for this kind of thing, the Oliveris are real over-the-top type Reality characters,  and also ... Staten Island. If he doesn't pitch this, someone else will. So he musters resources to shoot a sizzle. He tries to keep the cost of production down (read: unpaid interns and possibly an underpaid Associate Producer) but still has to drop a couple of thousand dollars in editing. He just hopes he's made the right decision producing this pitch. 

Bob shoots at least ten of these a year and sometimes he doesn't sell any of them. So, he spends about $20K on Development a year (and, frankly, this is vastly understating the number of pitches production companies probably make each year). This is a scary amount of money to throw against the wall in the hopes of something sticking.

The day of the Network meeting an anxious Bob arrives with three sizzle reels (he’s modified two other pitches so that they meet the family-with-a-twist spec) and a desperate smile. The network exec's late; there’s a new Head of Programming at the network and there have been nonstop meetings since his arrival. (Unbeknownst to fearful Bob, the exec herself is terrified that the new boss will toss her like the other execs who’ve recently been let go). She's sorry but she only has ten minutes. 

Bob bobs his head, of course, of course while calculating internally which pitch to discard - he won't have time for three. So, what have you got to show me? Bob hits plays on his first sizzle, a pitch about an Alaskan survivalist family. Bob's on the edge of his seat. This is a strong concept (and is secretly Bob's favorite) but as he unspools the sample the network exec is constantly checking her email. Shit, he's really not getting traction with this one. 

Survive! Alaska is a bust. Bob moves onto the The Rarin' Oliveris. The network exec's still checking her phone but she seems faintly amused by footage of mom and dad getting into a fight about wardrobe. Bob perks up. The executive looks down at her phone. Fuck. He raises the audio to get her attention. The sizzle cuts to the Oliveris doing a show at a Staten Island church venue. The executive glances up. “Ooh, a church!” she says. As it happens, the new Head of Programming specifically wants more Christian family programming. What would be really good, she says, is if the Oliveris were actually Christians seeking to spread the Word by singing Bible-inspired songs at Christian venues. Would this be possible?

Well, no, not really. The Oliveris are many things, but church-going ain’t one of them. Also, their songs are generally rockabilly with a dash of jazz. But this is the first positive response he's had all meeting. So Bob, motivated by the fear of what will happen if he doesn't make a sale, says sure. He has no idea exactly how such a thing may be executed, or even if it can be, but he starts making all kinds of promises he really can't deliver on.

Bob makes the sale: an eight episode, half-hour series. Only, instead of the show being about a zany Staten Island family called The Rarin' Oliveris, now it's Alleluyah Oliveri. And instead of a docusoap about a hard-drinking, cursing, rock 'n roll family (the reality) it's a docusoap about a family of big characters committed to spreading the word of God (the Reality). Also the budget is pretty small and they want to premiere the show in about, you know, 4 months. Can you do it Bob? Yes! (This is where, in interview bite, we would have Bob confess that he has no idea how to pull this off!!)

CLIFFHANG INTO COMMERCIAL as we say.

Barry Diller is Wrong

“I just think it’s a phenomenon of reality television as politics. [...] Nobody wants to watch reality television of two housewives sitting in a room taking about where they’re going to go get their hair done. It’s all about conflict. Donald Trump, all he is is about conflict, and all that he is is negative conflict."
Media Mogul Barry Diller speaking at Bloomberg Markets Most Influential Summit

Last Tuesday Media Mogul Barry Diller weighed in on Donald Trump's candidacy, saying it is little more than a Reality spectacle. (This is a boring observation that has been made by many others, but has gotten  more press because Diller said it).

Diller knows a thing or two about Reality programming, having co-founded Fox with his pal Rupert Murdock.  As a result he is, in fact, responsible for producing the first Reality show COPS  (in an effective effort at undermining the pesky unions that control narrative programming).

However, I beg to differ with his analysis of the primary as Reality and particularly his comparing the current situation to, for instance, a Housewives show. That's offensive both to the Housewives casts, and Reality as a whole.

Frankly, these candidates are producing piss poor Reality footage. Yeah, sure, we have some nice archetypes developing what with Fiorina really owning her Wicked Witch persona, Ben Carson providing plenty of yucks with his Village Idiot routine, and Trump lording over it all like the Ring Master of the Dingaling Circus.

But while we've got a whole bunch of incendiary statements out there, we've no actual conflict. As Diller should know a comment is not conflict. Conflict arises when one character reacts to another character's incendiary statement, and we've got none of that here. All we've got is a bunch of assholes muttering about rapist immigrants; the similarity between 9/11 and Obamacare; and the boss job they did running a company into the ground; to be met with silence from the rest of the field.

Why does Trump even bother taking a shit on John McCain's war record, if McCain's ally Jeb Bush is gonna just sulk in a corner in response?

What's the point of the Wicked Witch Fiorina lying through her teeth about imaginary Planned Parenthood videos, if there isn't someone who's gonna pull a bitch's weave over it??! You know you're really amateur hour when Kenya Moore of Housewives of Atlanta has a more apt response than any of the candidates flailing out there.

Finally, how come Carson gets to blather on about bullet ridden bodies being better than gun control if no one is gonna choke him Mob Wives style on a trip to Vegas?

The closest we got to a Reality moment occurred when Fiorina confronted Trump about his implication that she was too ugly to govern, but it really lacked some kind of physical follow through.

In short, as Reality goes, the whole thing sucks. This is a bunch of fuck ups spouting soundbites into a vacuum. There are no counter-points. There is no Story. If only the primary were at least as interesting as your average Reality show.

And as for Diller's proclamation that if Trump wins he plans to leave the country, here's my counter: thanks for sharting out the Reality genre in the first place, and then taking off when it starts to smell.  Asshole.

#primaries #diller #trump #fiorina