Redeeming Reality Television: Horse Rectum as Pharmakon.

Derek Foster
Communication Studies, Wilfrid Laurier University

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     Last modified: February 3, 2006

Abstract
For some, reality television has taken an extreme turn - criticized for the "unreality" and sheer ludicrousness of shows such as “extreme makeover” and “the swan.” With such programming, we knowingly seek to be entertained by watching “ordinary” people as they are put into extraordinary situations and asked to perform or endure abnormal acts. It is, however, instructive to point out how, as an object of criticism, reality television tends to be a lightning rod for emotivism. Alasdair MacIntyre saw emotivism as the triumphant “logic” of the 20th century. This doctrine that all evaluative judgments are nothing but expressions of preference, expressions of attitude or feeling characterizes both naysayers and defenders of reality television. Yet, instead of forcing one to take sides in this debate, we should view this form of public argument as a source of creative tension. Instead of declaring that reality TV has “gone too far,” and bemoaning its lowest common denominator contribution to the public sphere (seducing us with mindless pap, distracting us from rational, embodied conversations, civility and consensus), we ought to view it as an expression of what Kevin DeLuca and Jennifer Peeples term the public screen. Reality TV, then, does not seek to “better” us through stimulating dialogue but hails us through dissemination, images, hypermediacy, publicity, distraction and dissent. We learn about ourselves not just from its representations but also from the metatext surrounding it. As John Durham Peters suggests, dissemination is receiver-oriented communication characterized by the endless proliferation of emissions with no guarantee of productive exchange. Lessons for our everyday life occur not simply in the hyperreal contests represented on the screen but in the open scatter of messages surrounding it (rather than the normative dream of shared, mutual understanding).