Reality- Too Real for T.V.

After we were released from the training on Thursday, I returned to my hotel room, got comfy, grabbed the remote and settled in for a night of uninterrupted cable watching. Since I don't have cable at home and really don't watch network television, it is all pretty new to me. So I stumbled upon Project Runway and was intrigued. They were down to six contestants and this week’s challenge was to create a companion piece to their winning design from last week’s competition. They were all so hopeful and industrious. Contestants were given one hundred bucks and told to go to a fabric store and buy the fabric for their newest creation in no more than thirty minutes. They had until midnight that night to design it, cut it, sew it, have a fitting and then onto the runway. They were impressive. One guy sewed hundreds of leather "leaves" onto a two tiered gown and one woman, a refugee from Bosnia who looked 60 but was only 44, created a longer than usual, gray suit coat with an open, wide, floppy lapel, horizontal darts and tapered sleeves. The "judges" were unmerciful to the designers whose designs were not going to win. They heckled their designs, poked fun at how drab the woman's coat was and were just mean-spirited. Now perhaps this keeps ratings high, and perhaps that makes for interesting television, but I felt so badly for her. She's a refugee for crying out loud! Of course her stuff is bleak. Her whole life is bleak. She should have gotten a prize for mirroring her experience. Some depressed person would have bought it. I clicked over to MTV and although I didn't see one music video, they had a reality show where horribly mannered, ungrateful, entitled, mean adolescents were sent to spend one week with a strict, "square" family.  I had to click over to the Lifetime channel. Those children were so rude and I know some of it was scripted, but that behavior came way too easy for them. It was painful to watch. What kind of freaky voyeurs have we become? Why is watching someone else in pain fun? Whether torture is administered with a chainsaw or a sharp tongue, I think our need to see it says nothing good about us.