Trash is in the mind of the beholder. Therefore, this chapter.
“…So reality is now something you see on TV,” said Al.
“Must say it’s better than the formula shows,” commented Jane.
“Well, that’s not too difficult. The formula shows are basically reworks of story lines. Someone does something, someone reacts, in the context of the characters. So character A smashes up character B’s car; A is a dummy and B is the smart guy. Then they rework it with A as the smart guy…”
“Or Boy meets Girl: gets girl, loses girl, gets dog, gets girl back, gets business partner, gets another girl, loses both girls, gets bitten by dog or business partner…or more likely both…,” added Joe.
“Don’t they ever do anything original?” asked Carla.
Al winced.
“Not if they can help it. Originality is dangerously close to a requirement for talent. TV’s a form of bureaucracy. Plot Line A was accepted before, so the producers have more or less pre-accepted the ideas and the story. Plot Line B contains something relevant, like poverty, and is controversial, and hasn’t been done before, so they’re less likely to accept it. Plot Line C is purely sexual, so they’ll want to do it for the ratings but might tone it down a lot. Which is more likely to get accepted, and easier to write, and not have to rewrite? Obviously, A.”
A pause for a beer and some more biscuits.
“Reality TV, however, doesn’t require scripts, can be edited easily, and there’s no expectation of anything much. Reality TV is just a soap opera by other means. Think about it; why else would so many people watch a group of nondescript subhuman suburbanites having sex, or pretending to have sex? You wouldn’t look at most of them twice if you could help it. (Stands, looking messianic)This, I say unto ye, is the future of mankind…. ”
“Vague, isn’t he? What are you trying to say?” asked Bill.
“Ah, don’t worry about it. TV’s going to be like the net before too long. Millions of channels, and nobody watching anything except porn.”
“Yeah, I must say those copulation camps really got the safe sex message across to the kiddies. The age demographic for those shows was about 8 to 24, I think,” agreed Dorothy.
“Hideous thought. Two hundred hours of mediocre sex. It’d probably put them off the idea of sex forever,” said Carla.
“Or give them the idea that you’re supposed to have sex with whoever you happen to be living with,” added Dorothy.
“They’ve got that idea already. Why do you think that there was so much emphasis given to the idea that Holmes and Watson were gay? It’s a sales pitch using a familiar couple. On that basis, any two people of the same sex living together must be gay,” said Joe.
“So what’s it selling?” asked Al, interested.
“An image of gay relationships, interpreted through those characters.”
“Is this yet another conspiracy theory? The Beige Peril Lurks Among Us?” asked Al, interested.
“No. Most of the gays I know are literate enough to know that Holmes and Watson had a typical 19th century relationship, and that Conan Doyle wasn’t professionally suicidal. That was Victorian England, remember, home of the sexual hypocrite. They even kept their kinkiest, sickest, brothels in France. Nothing that sexually honest, even by implication, would have had a hope of being published. I think the only reason they’d play along would be as a joke on the illiterate straights and a way of demythologizing their own relationships away from the straight perspective. I mean those two, gay, it’s a bit of a departure from the old drag queen routine, isn’t it?”
“Strange, isn’t it, the straight view of gays? If you speak like a human being, have any sort of education, and don’t dress like a corpse, and act like a diseased pig in public, you must be gay. I’ve always found that hilarious. All these stolid middle class types, conferring a sort of social superiority on gays, just because gays don’t act the way they do,” grinned Dorothy.
“Yeah, I used to get that a lot when I went to business college. It was truly pitiful. These guys, all from the fringe suburbs, all low income kids, all trying to be sophisticates, and of course they had no hope, because they had no exposure to any sort of culture that didn’t come from prime time. There were quite a few of them, and they couldn’t make any sort of time with the women, coming from the wrong planet and all, so they decided that all the other guys were gay, and used to sneer at us as we went around with our girlfriends,” said Joe.
“What happened?” asked Carla.
“Some of them formed a stock broking group. They had their own float in the parade a few years ago, Fags With Stags. I spoke to one of them and he said that he couldn’t imagine why he’d ever thought I was gay, I just didn’t have the sense of style.”
“Tends to take a lot of the sting out of the stereotypes, doesn’t it?” commented Jane
“Oh, yeah, I’d never have picked them for gay. Actually they were so macho at the time that I would’ve been more likely to think I was. Admittedly the guy wasn’t belching all the time like he used to, or waddling around like a belligerent chicken.”
“Does this mean, O Sage, that some people don’t know what sex they are?” asked Bill.
“Well, let’s face it, this society is really a one way street on most issues. There’s mainstream, be it whatever subject, … and everything else is “others”. Of all possible human things to oversimplify I think sexual behavior is probably the most ridiculous. People do have sexual preferences, whether anyone likes it or not. What’s normal for one person is actually abnormal to another. That’s not a theory, it’s a fact. Some people have sex lives that just don’t work, and that may well be because they’re the wrong sexual behavior for that person. That’s no revelation, but you can’t blame people if it takes a while to find their own style.”
“Which is a perfect justification for sex on reality TV; choice of partners,” said Al.
“Don’t mind twisting the argument around much, do you? How are you more likely to find your sexual preference on a TV show than anywhere else?”
“I think Al means that prolonged exposure to all the possibilities is more likely to find a niche,” said Dorothy.
“Yeah, a few thousand hours of some really interesting couples should give some sort of insight,” added Al.
“Might even make you appreciate what a really unhealthy person can do on camera,” said Bill.
“Or with an ironing board in the moonlight,” said Dorothy.
“Well, if you met an iron you really liked….,” said Al.
“Or a shirt in need of companionship…” said Bill.
“How would you market that, Al?” asked Carla.
“Needs a slogan… all shirts need slogans…that’s why we wear them….“More Than Just A Good Fit, It’s A Good…..”” He cracked up at the expression on Dorothy’s face.
“How about “Ironing, Your Passport To Wild….(wide eyed look) Frenzied… (grins maniacally) Building-Destroying… (brings hands together in praying motion) Goldfish-Annoying (bats eyelids fiercely)… Romance,”” said Dorothy.
Al had been doubled up laughing from “Frenzied”. The others had joined him on the floor soon after. It took a while to remember to breathe properly. He looked at her, then at the others.
“You know, it’s a lot safer to get things dry cleaned, nowadays.”