Reality TV

Along with many others we went to see Christopher Nolan's epic film, The Odyssey, the other day. This is not a post about the movie per se but rather about the mirror mass media holds up to us. Before I go off on that tangent, however, let me say that I rarely compare written works to their depiction on Television or the movies. The written word, particularly works of fiction, and I would include Homer's tales in this definition, is expansive and bound, if at all, solely by the author's intentions. We are free to be world builders populating the characters and the narrative from our imagination. Our lens is wide, focused at any given moment only on what interests us or is called to our attention by the conjuring of a skillful writer and the energy of the narrative.

Brought to life on the screen, our vision narrows, we see only what the scene depicts, never what lies just outside the frame and the range of possibilities becomes limited. On balance, it is possible through skillful photography and editing, through superb acting and technology to summon the larger than life, things beyond our experience, into seeming reality. But even then the filmmaker's vision supplants our own. Students of the craft will rightly say that gifted directors have mastered the grammar of the unseen--the off camera action inferred by hint and filmic metaphor. This is true in Nolan's case and to give credit where due the fantastical creatures and settings given life are tastefully restrained, avoiding the excesses of CGI, which to me was a wise decision. The viewer is not distracted from the essential story that transcends the centuries to tell a truth about humanity.

Which brings me to the subject of today's post. If one subscribes to the belief that mass media reflects its own truths about our culture than consider what is revealed in the progression from the 1940's to the present. I choose the WW2 era as a starting point because it is arguably the heyday of Hollywood and just prior to the introduction of Television, both of which have defined our cultural norms until fairly recent. It is also a time when films began to move past the sole objectives of escapism, and jingoistic propaganda to reveal the personal drama, relationships, values and enduring truths albeit in a gritty colorless dimension writ larger than life--not quite reality but aspiration.

The next two decades were colorful to say the least, frothy even in their novelty and optimistic but again, largely devoid of a nod to the immediate past and its grim truths. With the advent of Television came consumerism and the episodic depiction of real life reflected a binary view; sitcom vs soap opera, game shows and historical epics that were anything but realistic. Submerged under the froth and repression reflected on the large and small screens we shambled into the sixties and seventies amidst a growing confrontation with something closer to the world in which we really lived, the struggle between good and evil starker, truths beginning to emerge from behind a thin veneer of post war escapism, only to find ourselves engaged in a different conflict

Through the eighties and into the early part of the next decade the movies and TV slowly shed their skin, struggling to become truth tellers, sometimes artfully but often diluted by cynicism and a focus on our dark underbelly. As we became embittered we found validation for our view everywhere. So-called reality TV had its birth in this period with shows focused on crime and the foibles of relationships. As life became harder, more tense and politically divisive Television turned away from costly scripted programs towards shows that pitted humans against one another in invented 'real life' drama, or tongue in cheek voyeurism. Even as we tried to hide from reality, it was dished up to us, a glimpse of the wreck as our car sped by.

As we entered the dawn of the new age Television had refined this extremist form of reality programming, one that was absent art or narrative but long on artificial tension--the drama imposed by circumstance rather than story telling. The movies grew darker, and more focused on alternate realities--other worlds other times, as if to suggest that the present was not all that appealing, even if the truths were eternal. I need not remind us of the growing divisions in our society that fermented throughout the early 2000's, most of us lived through it, growing more embittered by the stark revelation that the world, life itself was not what we expected.

But let me step away from abstractions and offer up three TV programs framing a common subject that span this interval by way of example. The first, is a character centric soap opera, intense and widely viewed as a realistic depiction of the day, a drama of life and death on ER. I recently revisited the show to remind myself why so many of us were emotionally invested. Acknowledging the quality of writing and acting this cultural icon which spanned fifteen years from the mid nineties to 2009 seems pale and simplistic today alongside its successors. At the edges it hinted at real world issues surrounding medicine and the medical profession but its primary focus was on relationships, a hospital ER was merely a place where life and death cohabited. It was a long way from Marcus Welby and Dr. Kildare, but still far short of terrible reality that was unfolding.

Ten years later, The Resident, another medical drama turned to a similar setting, attempting to reveal the behind the scenes drama set in a hospital. Compared to ER the characters seem thinner, more caricature than real, trying to be real but falling short. The story lines, however were anything but light; cynical and closer to the reality we were living. Betrayal, in a word, was the singular theme, reflecting a growing sense that the world as we made it was a minefield of greed, lies and heartbreak. In The Resident, life and death outcomes are the product of money over medicine decisions, accountability is ignored by the powerful or greedy, the value of human life weighed in scenes that are just short of plausible, contrived to drive home a relentless point. Human life takes second place in a corrupt society.

Which brings us to the current attempt to mine the truths and realities of medicine, The Pitt. In many ways it is a program that is more real than reality, played by a brilliant cast and with superb writing. Nothing is spared --every ill and cruelty of the human condition and the politics of the day is there for the viewer to see. At times it is so realistic one almost needs to avert one's eyes. The pain and grief are real, but there is also a willingness to expose our moral crises in truer terms stripped of the pretense and artifice of its predecessors. It is still a Television program, but one that comes closer to the world we live in today.

All of which brings us back to where this post began, with Nolan's Odyssey. I submit it is a very modern telling of an ancient tale--an existential exploration of a life's journey, its temptations, self deceptions and trials. The framework is ancient and enduring, but make no mistake this is a story that invites us to return from our endless journey, acknowledge the grave and self indulgent errors of our ways and cast out the grifters, sycophants and pretenders. It is a pointed metaphor, but one that points us towards hope even as it reckons with the consequences of our wayward journey to the present. Life endures, reality is not simply a tale, it is personal; our individual and corporate travail that compels us to confront the truth in ourselves.