2007-10-01

What we believe.

I'm sort of ashamed to admit this, but I got totally sucked into the maelstrom of televised tedium known as "Rock of Love."

Now, if you haven't heard of or seen this program, consider yourself fortunate. I'll summarize: a gaggle of young women, in various states of undress, live in a mansion and vie for the romantic attention of one Bret Michaels, the almost-middle-aged, probably-balding vocalist for the not-quite-prog-rock Poison. Last night was the finale, and the "winner" was Jes, a 23-year-old hairstylist from Naperville, IL. She beat out ex-stripper Heather, who immediately sought solace via everyone's favorite emotional vomitorium: her MySpace blog. Heather wants everyone to know that she was grossly misrepresented on the program. It's all in the editing. She is horrified by the way she's been portrayed, and has cried herself to sleep over it some nights.

I, personally, weep not for Heather. "Reality" programming is a medium not without precedent at this point. I would think that one should know by now, going in, that one is at the mercy of the editors and writers (and "reality" shows DO employ writers), who will view hundreds of hours of footage and create a plotline and characters that we, the viewers, can embrace or revile as we see fit. We will believe, then, that Tiffany is a drunken trainwreck, Lacey is a manipulative shrew, and Heather is a total skank because we will not have been given anything else to go on, and because we won't care to consider the source. In that sense, one could argue that it truly is "reality."

As someone in recovery, I'm aware that I'm a pretty decent editor, myself. When I am in a reasonably good place in my head, and when I am doing what I'm supposed to be doing in order to stay there, I'm amazed at what I've been able to convince myself, over the years, to believe when chasing a high...ANY high:
I'll stop at one.
I need this to feel better.
This is "the real thing."

One of the best pieces of advice I got, I got early on (even though I admit that I have not been especially rigorous in applying it in certain circumstances): Watch the whole movie, and not just the trailer. What is a trailer after all but a means of whetting your appetite? You see only the "good" parts. If you continually run trailers in your head, you neglect to acknowledge the inevitable:
It's never just one.
You'll feel "better" for a few minutes, but you'll feel even worse in short order.
It's "real" insofar as you've served a need until something better comes along.

In a sense, I think I would now probably amend that advice to: play the stuff that gets left on the cutting room floor. Only then will you get the whole picture.

lisamcc at 10:42 a.m.

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