ColumnWhere celebrity becomes conscious.

I used to watch a ton of reality TV. If a Real Housewife was bickering in the Big Apple, I was in. If beloved Tim Gunn was nattily quipping away on Project Runway, I was sitting up straighter and considering if I could really make that pant (not plural) work. My husband once suggested getting rid of our cable, and I threw myself across the box as if it was the last cupcake being featured on Cake Boss. Or DC Cupcakes. Or Cupcake Girls. And all of this was done in the dark, shades drawn, with me hissing like a rabid cat at anyone (see: disgusted husband) who tried to take my remote away.

Then, a mere few months ago, something changed. While channel surfing, I let the TV screen play for a moment on the highlights of a New Jersey Housewife’s spray tan. I glanced at the book on my nightstand. Back at the spray tan. Then back at the book. Then I actually turned off the television. J.M. Barrie wrote in Peter Pan that “Every time a child says, ‘I don’t believe in fairies,’ there is a fairy somewhere that falls down dead.” Did Paris Hilton shed a hair extension when I did this? Probably not. But it did get me thinking – how could I go from super fan to cold-turkey?

Basically, it’s because none of it seems real anymore. Much of reality TV has dissolved into scripted bad behavior, (see: Bad Girls Club), fearfully large families (see: 19 Kids and Counting, Kate Plus Eight), and bridezillas, (see: Bridezillas). Reality “characters” are now hitting plot points. What happens on these shows has become bad behavior in a bubble, not real life.

One has to wonder if producers are getting sloppy or are reality TV personalities just becoming self-aware. Experts are predicting a singularity to occur when technology becomes smarter than humans. I say it’s already hit in the brain mechanics of our reality stars – they are not only self aware, they are preening towards the camera. When reality isn’t really reality, then it doesn’t really work anymore. Doesn’t quantum theory point out that in the very act of watching, the observer affects the observed reality? If a Kardashian shops at The Grove, does it really happen if no one watches?

It’s no secret that some regard reality TV as the bane of all existence, the downfall of culture, the “end of times” for intellectual thought. Bloggers are pondering if reality TV in fact makes us dumber. But even Salon.com, the go-to for cultural elitists, regularly covers reality TV. Most of us are watching whether we admit it or not, and the trend doesn’t seem like it is turning despite much clucking of tongues (my tongue included) at the degenerative state of reality TV.

And yet, there are glimmers of redemption on the reality-ruled horizon. TLC’s The Little Couple brings us Jen Arnold and her husband, Bill Klein, newlywed little people. The Arnold-Kleins appeal on their sheer normalcy – they work, they plan, they play, all just on a shortened eye-level. Are they contributing to society on some meta level? Maybe not, but they’re not falling drunkenly headfirst into a beach. This is a plus. Then there’s Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution, a show which showcases efforts to get kids and their parents to eat better. It’s hard to argue that this isn’t a good thing.

But then, who says television is really supposed to make our world a better place? And if so, who gets to decide what’s worthy of our attention? It may be a slippery slope from The Little Couple to the Jersey Shore, but both exist within the same genre. So where the line?

Ultimately, what makes reality palatable is how the reality stars use their platform. Erin Fox blogs about television at her web site, Squee TV. I asked her how she felt about the world of Snookie and Real Housewives.

Fox told me:

Reality TV can be a very positive thing if done well, and knowing that the sole purpose is really entertainment. I feel like Bethenny Frankel has become a touchstone for women who are interested in becoming entrepreneurs.  She’s a no-filter, ball-busting babe, but she just sold a low carb margarita drink for over $100 million. I’d like to sign up for that seminar. And, look at Kathy Griffin. She’s another loud mouth, button pusher but she has done amazing work for gay rights on television.

In the end, Fox’s “ball-busting babes” perhaps explain reality TV’s popularity – people watch because they see themselves, or versions of themselves they’d like to be. Or in the case of drunken, battling reality stars, what they fear becoming.

So on that point, it seems like reality TV is nothing more that our own mirror ball sending tiny reflections of our moves into every corner of our country. And while we may be critical of it, perhaps our criticism is warranted out of our own frustrations with our fears and hopes – in the end, of our own reality.

This is the latest installment in Katherine Butler’s column, Shade Grown Hollywood, where celebrity becomes conscious. “Shade grown” refers literally to shade grown coffee, a farming method that “incorporates principles of natural ecology to promote natural ecological relationships.” Shade Grown is our sustainable twist on Hollywood.

Image: crazysphinx

The post Shade Grown Hollywood: Why We Love and Hate Reality TV appeared first on EcoSalon.

ColumnWhere celebrity goes conscious.

I’m a Jersey girl. Hailing from the south side of the state, I can judge cheese steaks like most judge fine wines, I “go in” for Philadelphia’s teams, and I know that Wawa is not the mumbling of an incoherent baby but rather a place for a great sandwich. This also means that I grew up playing in the Atlantic Ocean, which at low tide is a haven for tiny crabs and interesting sea shells. The Jersey shore of my childhood was a bucolic place of salt-scented air and custard stands on the boardwalk.

How times have changed.

The Jersey shore is not Jersey Shore. Nor is New Jersey the armpit of the nation filled with Tony Soprano-lookalikes. Residents don’t define themselves by “what exit” – I had to drive an hour to get to the nearest mall growing up. In reality, most of New Jersey is pastoral and pretty. But making this clear to people has always been like shouting at the wind. These days, it’s a full-force hurricane. How exactly did this happen?

Oh, right.

On top of being a nation of junk food eaters and binge drinkers, we now worship people who eat junk food and binge drink. And how the cast of Jersey Shore is rewarded, with huge appearance fees, clothing lines, and a frank disregard for anything resembling manners. If you don’t like it, they could give a crap. As Snooki herself responded to all her “haters” via Perez Hilton, “F#CK YOU!…If you don’t want to watch, then don’t watch.”

So I watched – at least the first season. I can offer up some excuse that, as a Jersey girl, it was my hometown duty to collect information on how to defend myself against the latest statewide assault. And sure, part of it was nostalgia for home. Yes, MTV wasn’t offering up a Jersey Shore I had known, but there was still a boardwalk and the undeniable appeal of Snooki. Underneath the tanning and hair spray, she’s your friendly twentysomething, searching for an identity, unsure of what that all meant.

But there’s another reason I tuned in, and it’s the one that gives me that creepy-crawly uncomfortable feeling that I should be reading up on my Dostoevsky. I paid attention for the same reason people slow down on the freeway to check out an accident on the other side. You look at the accident. You think, “Man, that sucks.” You try to move on, but from time to time, you can’t stop thinking about the twisted carnage on the road. And you feel really sorry for the people involved and the thousands others stuck motionless on the 110 North at rush hour.

But by the second season of Jersey Shore, I was out. It was apparent that we’d been punked. The cast of Jersey Shore had us stuck in park while they were clearly laughing all the way to the bank. They still are. To quote one enthusiastic commentator, “The ratings for the third season premiere of Jersey Shore are freakin’ huge.”

Sure, Snooki and her kin have figured out that getting falling down drunk for the world to see pays financially. Spiritually? Intellectually? Psychologically? Perhaps not so much. As Snooki (alias, Nicole Polizzi) recently told Rolling Stone, “I just hate it. Obviously, they’re only going to put the good stuff in, and the good stuff is us drunk, so all I’m seeing is me drunk and falling down. That’s how I am when I party, but some of the stuff I do is, like, ‘Really, Nicole?’ I look like a freakin’ alcoholic. I’m like, ‘You’re sweating, your makeup is running, you look gross.’ I just look like shit.”

But the winds of of Hurricane Jersey Shore continue to roar. And what’s the real harm? It’s not like Snooki, JWoww, The Situation and company are claiming to be saints. They don’t make any pretense to be conscientious moral compasses, hauling their recycling out to the curb while toting cloth bags to the supermarket. Via MTV, we watch them party, fight, and hook-up with each other and an enthusiastic crowd of guest stars. They drive giant cars, they ignore warnings about excessive tanning – they basically do whatever the hell they want, carbon footprint be damned. They are twisted sisters to the green movement and we’re the worried older sisters fussing over them and shaking our heads.

Maybe it’s because my Jersey shore was more Bon Jovi and big hair than spray tans and tank tops. And I’ve done stupid things drunk too, just not on TV (And here’s when I thank the universe once again there weren’t cell phone cameras when I was in college). One on one, I bet some of these stars are lovely.

So here’s my plea to sweet Snooki. Girl, you’ve got miles of viewers stopped on the freeway watching you. Do a 180-degree turn on expectation and start kicking butt on the charity front. You can motivate a whole new untapped resource of admirers into helping others. I know you told Rolling Stone that your dream is to build an empire like Jessica Simpson, but you don’t have to be the next princess of consumerism. Read The Road Not Taken. Drink some orange juice. Put on some sun block. Give your liver a rest.

Snooks, you were a veterinary assistant – there are probably some unfortunate pups that could benefit from one appearance fee. You were famously punched in the face by a man in the first season of Jersey Shore – is there a woman’s shelter that could use some funding? The beach has been good to you, why not help another coastline? Your legacy doesn’t have to be fellating pickles and doing face plants in the sand before getting dragged off by the cops.

And just think what the repercussions could be for reality TV. The Kardashian empire could get lost in its own hair extensions. Teen moms might start using birth control. Real housewives might put down the Botox syringe. Oh, what a wonderful world of TV it could be.

But look at me, all worked up, paying attention while stuck in traffic.

This is another installment in Katherine Butler’s column, Shade Grown Hollywood, where celebrity becomes conscious. “Shade grown” refers literally to shade grown coffee, a farming method that “incorporates principles of natural ecology to promote natural ecological relationships.” Shade grown is our sustainable twist on Hollywood.

Images: aarongreenwood

The post Shade Grown Hollywood: How Snooki Could Save Us All appeared first on EcoSalon.