Media Watch Question: Should Reality TV Shows Have A Code of Standards for Participants?
The Salahis. Photo courtesy of the Washington Post.
Reality shows sometimes attract unstable, flamboyant folks. Just take the latest case of Virginia couple Tareq and Michaele Salahi, who crashed a White House state dinner in hopes of getting parts on Bravo TV’s proposed “Real Housewives of D.C.”
National Association of Social Workers member and psychologist Jamie Huysman said in a Dec. 1 Washington Post article that reality shows can exploit “psychologically damaged” people.
Huysman ought to know. He has treated patients recovering from the mental fallout of appearing on such shows.
Which leads to today’s question:
Q: Huysman says reality shows should adopt a code of standards to deal with what happens to participants before, during and after they appear before camera. Advertisers and viewers should also boycott offensive programming. Do you agree? And do you think television networks would adopt standards and the public would tune out bad reality shows?
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While I think it would be great to have standards, I do not believe it is realistic. Reality shows are the biggest market in television right now. They are the only shows pulling in large numbers of viewers consistently. The networks are not going to do anything that might hurt that.
I’ve tried to maintain a rather consistent diet of reality TV show abstinence. I haven’t had any difficulty in maintaining that level of disinterest.
Realtiy TV shows seem to appeal to the lowest elements of human nature. Adopting a code of standards seems antithetical to what reality TV is all about. The only effective code of standards for reality TV would be to stop their production.
Those reality shows (including the on air courtroom and talk shows) do nothing but provide an avenue for people to ridicule others all in the name of “entertainment.” They have no social redeeming value at all.
… On one hand I want to say “you can only do what a person will allow you to do” then on the other hand that statment is BS and people honestly exploit others. But I do think a lot of the people who are “exploited” on reality shows have some type of mental issues even if it is low… See More self-esteem that will cause them to behave and act in some of the ways they do. Someone who is crying out for attention will only behave in these fashions…