Proud to Be a Reality TV Fan

"Did you see what happened on 'The Bachelor' last night?" "Did you want David Cook to win 'American Idol'?" "Can you believe what Tyra said on 'America's Next Top Model'?" These questions are the standard greetings in my office nearly every morning. And my answer is always the same: "Yes!"

I'm a proud fan of reality TV, although it took me a while to admit it. I used to think I was just burning time. I called it 'mental relaxation' after an intellectually taxing day to just veg out in front of the TV and watch someone else's life materialize onscreen. It wasn't until I was watching the finale of "American Idol" season 2 and I found myself crying when Clay Aiken was robbed of the title, that I realized I was truly hooked. That night, all my excuses and pretenses were gone as I had to admit that I was truly a fan of reality TV.

But there is no shame in being a fan. Aside from being merely entertaining and fun, reality TV shows allow us a glimpse into worlds we would otherwise never experience. Where else can we see Flavor Flav find true love (again, again, and again,) or see an accountant stranded on a desert island eating rats to survive? These shows are escapist in the best sense. They release us from the hum-drum of everyday life and allow us to dip our toes in the pool of the unbelievable. I can't honestly say that I would ever gather a group of twenty buff guys vying to be my lover and pick one amongst them to marry... but I can say it's extremely amusing when someone else does it!

Reality TV shows are essentially a huge, unethical psychological experiment. When studying for my undergraduate degree in Psychology, I constantly found myself coming up with amazingly out-there experiments that could be done to determine deeper facets of human nature and causation. But when I wrote term papers or talked to my professors about my kooky ideas, the response was always: "You could never do that, that's unethical." But apparently being a Hollywood producer excuses you from the confines of ethics, as there seems to be no limit to the experimentation in the reality TV realm. So, I call my obsession with reality TV a "study of human nature." Maybe the environments aren't quite controlled, maybe the scientific method isn't being implemented, but nonetheless, I always switch off the TV at night with a profound new understanding of humanity.

So the way I see it, there's really no downside to being a fan of reality TV. My living room runway walk has been vastly improved, my survival instincts have been honed in case I'm every stranded in the Australian outback, I appreciate the normality and fidelity of my married life more than ever, and I'm increasingly educated and aware that cameras are everywhere... watching... watching... watching...