I don't want to date you, but I'll go on a TV show where that's the premise

On my way home from work today, I spotted Alex whatever-his-last-name-is, the bachelor from the first season of, well, The Bachelor (the guy in the picture), and it got me thinking about something that’s been bugging me for a while. I had wanted to write something about the degeneration of reality television, and though I’ve touched on it before, I never really got to the meat of the issue. While The Bachelor was never a fantastic hour of television, and its original concept relied on a sexist premise, it still featured real people on the show to find love (along with the 15-minutes-of-famers). Over the years participants who opt to be on reality shows for anything but some form of fame have since become few and far between, and this shift can best be summed up by what I call the “Love” shows on VH1 and MTV.

The “Love” series, if you don’t know what I’m referring to include the following reality programs: Flavor of Love, Rock of Love, I Love New York, I Love Money, both seasons of Charm School (yes no “love” in the title, but it’s the same cast), Real Chance at Love, A Shot at Love, A Double Shot at Love, and That’s Amore: love, Italian style. Drew Barrymore (yet another reason why I don’t like her) is even Executive Producing a relationship boot camp show called Tough Love currently in production for VH1. In these shows participants compete for “catches” like Flavor Flav, Bret Michaels, Tila Tequila (the internet non-celeb), and Tiffany ‘New York’ Pollard (famous for being spit on by ‘Pumpkin’ in the first season of Flavor of Love). What almost shocks me the most is that I’ve heard that cast members have to be STD-free, though I’m pretty sure that anyone who has hooked up with Bret Michaels no longer fits into that category.

The shows demonstrate how far ‘reality’ television has devolved, a seemingly recurrent theme in my musings on this site. All of the programs are scripted to some degree, the challenges are outlandish and frankly, embarrassing for the contestants, and I doubt anyone on the shows is genuinely interested in the stars of the show. Even The Bachelor has changed over the seasons: the women have become younger and Valley Girl speak more common. While the ABC program doesn’t compare to the baseness of the VH1 and MTV counterparts, they both have come to include similar casting choices, and stunts to spike ratings. I understand that from a network perspective, these shows will continue as long as people keep watching them, and while I’ll admit I’ve seen an episode or more of these programs, I certainly can’t tune in for an entire season. The shows might be cheap to produce and easy to stage, but their content is dumbing down television and encouraging negative American stereotypes. I think I’ll stick to scripted fare.