Dialogue: Fine TV as plebs turn into celebs

By SANDY BURGHAM

Since I've never bothered learning how to set the video-timer, I inefficiently have to stay home whenever there is a TV programme on that I want to watch.

So imagine how irritated I was when a close friend had birthday drinks on a Sunday evening, forcing me to miss both UK Popstars and a Big Brother special. This became a moment of epiphany in that I realised I was hooked on reality television, a genre I had so often rubbished.

Yes, I was part of the great unwashed and not just an interested observer of it.

The expensive, thought-provoking British drama that I used to favour on a Sunday evening just doesn't cut it any more. I would rather watch real people sing pop songs or sit through their meaningless bickering about household chores.

Is it that I am getting younger (I wish) or dumber (possibly) or is reality TV like electronic nicotine? The truth is that, like many, I just cannot help myself.

I was raised on a diet of pre-rehearsed, high-effort variety shows where the investment in costume, set design, and scripting must have been enormous. Just think of all those minstrels who had to be painted black and white each week.

Back then it was generally accepted that those on the box were more fabulous than us ordinary viewers. Thus we endured endless nights watching Val Doonican and Des O'Connor, assuming they must be worth watching since they were on television, and, therefore, famous.

But while reality TV must be cheaper to make than the drama or variety genres, it is slicker, smarter TV because it adds a critical dimension the others all but ignored - the humble viewer. This is inclusive, interactive television at its best, allowing the ordinary punter to help to shape the plot.

Furthermore, plucking plebs from obscurity and granting them instant celebrity status is far more inspirational and aspirational than expecting us to fawn over average actors in escapist sitcoms.

There is a refreshing honesty about it. Why shouldn't these hairdressers and gym instructors become famous for being themselves? It only serves to emphasise that Pamela Anderson and her cronies are simply pumped-up nobodies whom the public has somewhat randomly granted elevation from nowheresville.

Big Brother is the zenith of reality television. The characters are so accessible that our emotional involvement is intense. It becomes less about the people on screen and more about the self-identity of the viewer, who lives vicariously though the contestants.

It's like playing Lord of the Flies, and each week we aid in someone's demise as they are broken down, humiliated, eaten alive, while we sharpen the knives at the feast.

Fans are able to choose who will be the king of the Big Brother castle. So far, revealing our desire to conform, we've weeded out anyone remotely alternative. A sleazebag, a dominatrix and a homosexual have been mercilessly evicted.

Now we are left with the most regular people imaginable, save one plump girl with a penchant for wearing bunny ears and PJs during the day.

But we will ruthlessly character assassinate these nice and normal folk, to find the ideal survivor. In fact, I almost rang the 0900 number to put my boot into one perfectly harmless Big Brother contestant, until I imagined the embarrassment to family, friends and the Herald if I was announced an 0900 prize-winner.

The accompanying narrative in the reality television genre is admittedly a little mindless, with the "look at this idiot in the white car" treatment. I used to think that this was because the producers thought we were too dumb to make out the scenario ourselves.

But, of course, the narrative makes the minutiae of our everyday lives a living drama. And, incredibly, it works. Who would have thought that television in 2001 would see us glued to watching people living in a house, the highlights being Jemma putting on lip-gloss and Blair feeding the chooks?

While many out there will still bemoan reality television as boring, low-grade drivel, they so easily forget that popular television never had much class to begin with.

We've just emerged from a 90s full of cheesy game shows, an 80s consumed with drama about filthy-rich Americans and a 70s obsessed with singing families.

Surely one cannot be too hard on reality TV when in a previous viewing incarnation we were all singing along to variety-show ditties such as: "May tomorrow be a perfect day, may you find sunshine and laughter along the way."

Goodnight everybody.