Cirque Du Salahi: Be Careful Who You Trust (27 page)

Reality TV—Who and Why?

Individuals with narcissistic personality disorder generally believe that the world revolves around them. This condition is characterized by a lack of ability to empathize with others and a desire to keep the focus on themselves at all times.

—
Psychology Today - Diagnosis Dictionary

Shortly before 4:30 a.m. on January 17, 1994, my husband and I were rattled awake inside of our Hollywood Hills home by the massive Northridge earthquake. We were still gingerly picking our way through the house and surveying the damage while trying to locate our two frightened cats when my employers at the television show
Hard Copy
called to say they were sending a camera crew out to our place.

Travel was difficult around the earthquake damaged vicinity, so my house had been chosen for a walk-and-talk piece on home damages because I lived close to the
Hard Copy
offices at the Paramount Pictures lot on Melrose Avenue. My assignment desk suggested that a tour of my home was a good way to put the aftermath of the quake into personal perspective. Great. This was definitely not within my usual comfort level, but I realized that the piece might be of help in easing a shaken local public (those with electrical power), as well as a concerned national audience with friends and family in the affected region, so I allowed it. When the crew arrived, I showed them around my home and described the damage while the camera rolled, catching my husband, Michael, cleaning up broken bottles of red wine that had spilled out onto the beige carpet. Our damage was typical of much of what occurred around the region, very mild compared to some homes hit extremely hard and completely ruined, or compared to entire apartment buildings that collapsed onto and killed their residents. The damage inflicted on most people and their property was at the nuisance level, but it was nevertheless a surreal experience to bring the crew inside and show a national audience around our busted up personal space.

Except for that one moment after the earthquake, I have kept what happens to me in my offcamera life separated from my TV career. The reasons are partly because of that vaguely creepy feeling of having countless numbers of unknown people look into your private life. That’s true even though I am used to being on television and relatively accustomed to all the baggage that comes with it. The arrangement has been a mostly happy part of my life for twenty years.

Having said that, I cannot imagine allowing television cameras to follow me around, always lurking, while producers stage situations for me to react to and manipulate my life for the sake of shooting my reactions and making it fit into some sort of storyline. This is what is consistently being done to cast members on “reality TV,” which then reduces any claim of “reality” down to the difference between using scripted lines provided by expensive union writers or using the cast’s own words in response to situations created by “reality TV” producers who fill the writing function as part of their producing job. Anyone who has been close enough to the major media world to see its behind-the-scenes effects on the players has to ask—who in the world would agree to give up control of their lives in that way?

Participants no doubt each have their own motive for taking a shot at fame this way, even if it’s just to find out what a major dose of camera time will do for them (or to them). But the questions remains, what drives someone to attempt to advance their lives through notoriety?

The answer, according to experts in the field of psychology and psychiatry, is that it is a person with a severe narcissistic personality, someone with a drive so powerful that it controls them instead of the other way around. The label “narcissist” comes from the Greek myth of Narcissus, a beautiful young man who ignored the world to forever gaze at his own reflection in a pool. In real life, narcissists don’t want to be left alone. They desperately need a constant supply of admiration to validate their sense of self-worth. Often, they don’t even care if you really like them. What they need is your attention. For them, it’s all about being held in high esteem by others. They need to have jealous people around them who want to be just like them.

Forensic psychiatrist Dr. Keith Ablow believes, “We’re at a unique and new cultural moment at which many people believe they exist only if they exist through the lens of a camera…and in the minds of what they believe to be an adoring public or followers on Twitter or Facebook.” Ablow currently appears on Fox News and was the former host of a syndicated television talk show that focused on human behavior. He worries about the younger generation watching false “reality” television programs. Ablow believes this glorified narcissistic way of life can, in time, change the whole fabric of our society.

“Be afraid of the future because to the extent that people believe themselves to be entertainment figures and actors in their own lives, they lose reality and they lose the ability to empathize,” says Dr. Ablow. “Then, they can do bad things to themselves and others, but because they do them ‘in character’ as though they are reading a script,” they think it’s acceptable.

It may not be too farfetched to say that reality television has surpassed simply entertaining us by the way it has seeped into the national psyche. It has also helped create a whole new ‘us.’ With every new show and every new group of cast members, the membrane between the viewer and the “stars” on the television has been stretched so thin that it is now porous enough to allow “regular folks” to feel as though they can leap right into the screen and join in the action. As if to say, “Hey, if the guy from the next town over has a television show, why can’t
I
be a celebrity, too?”

Psychotherapist Dr. Robi Ludwig often appears on television as a pundit on human behaviors and motivations. She says those who are attracted to performing on reality TV shows, no matter how exploitative they may be, are often fulfilling an inner belief that it is their destiny to be famous.

“It’s almost a sense of, ‘it’s my birthright to be famous and all I need to do is live my regular life and I’ll be a celebrity!’ That’s why what we see in reality television feels like junk food TV. It’s always around and there’s really no nutritional value to it. It’s just people getting off on just being themselves, with their goal being to get attention.”

There is plenty of evidence to support the idea that being part of a reality TV show is full of the risk of negative consequences. Dr. Ludwig says those who crave situations like that are deceived by their own narcissism to believe they possess some extra degree of fabulousness that makes them able to control what others cannot.

“They believe, ‘I’ll be smart and the negativity won’t impact me,’ or, ‘all things being equal, it will be worth it!’”

There is actually a scientific study that concludes celebrities are “significantly narcissistic.” One of the authors of the 2006 work printed in the
Journal
of Research in Personality
now appears on television and radio himself. He is Dr. Drew Pinsky, Professor of Psychiatry at the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California. Dr. Drew has hosted a syndicated radio talk show and has produced and starred in several VH1 TV series, dealing with celebrities who struggle with addiction. His study, written with USC colleague S. Mark Young, of the Annenberg School for Communication, reveals that in the population at large, men are more often narcissistic than women. But once you enter the world of entertainment, female celebrities were found to be significantly more narcissistic than their male counterparts. Next, the study looked at the whole gamut of different celebrity types—from big time movie stars and stand-up comedians to successful musicians—to determine which group attracted the highest number of narcissistic personalities. Their conclusion? It was the reality TV category that was populated with more narcissistic personalities than any other show biz group. The study also pointed out that the “ordinary people” cast as reality TV members are by definition the least experienced of all entertainers. They are people whose narcissistic approach to life—the attitude that no one matters more on the planet than they do—is the sole force leading them to stumble into being cast on a reality TV show.

Forensic psychologist and lawyer Dr. Brian Russell is a frequent guest on CNN, MSNBC, FOX and CBS. He maintains, “We’re on TV because we like to educate people and have a dialogue about issues. It’s not just us thinking, ‘hey look at us!’ Narcissism is when you have someone who just wants to be on television with no particular compelling aspect about it.”

Dr. Ludwig says it really boils down to whether or not an individual actually has something to say (or do) on television. “I think the difference is in the skill. In order to be a reporter you have to develop the skill of reporting. If you are an actor, you have to develop the skill of acting. For me I have to be a trained psychotherapist in order to do what I do. The problem with most reality stars is (they think) all you need to do is basically live and breathe… and just because they do that, other people ought to be fascinated with them.”

So what happens if we turn the camera around? What happens if we each ask ourselves: who among us devotes time to watching these video equivalents of the supermarket tabloids? TV ratings prove the answer; millions of viewers embrace watching spoiled celebrities go through rehab, or cranky children overwhelm their parents, or even gaggles of squabbling housewives. For example, according to Bravo demographics from the most popular episode of
The Real Housewives of New Jersey,
about 2.5 million people watched. About 1.9 million of them are between the ages of 18 and 49, with a sizeable chunk skewing closer to the 18-year-old age bracket.

Dr. Russell says what’s at play is what his profession refers to as the Downward or Upward Social Comparison reaction.

Watching other people experience problems … watching Anna Nicole Smith struggle to stand up, for example? It’s the kind of thing that our parents told us as kids, you’re not supposed to take pleasure in other people’s trials and tribulations. But people today are dissatisfied and bored with their own life and so it’s almost like by watching that you can say, “Oh, that person is worse off than me. Yes, I have a mundane job but at least I don’t have to deal with the stuff that woman has to.” That’s the Downward Social Comparison. The Upward Comparison, say to a movie star like Anna Nicole or Lindsey Lohan, gives us a satisfaction that, “Oh, those people have it all but they always crash and burn!” Both reactions make us feel better about ourselves.

But why don’t viewers comprehend the absurdity of watching something called “Reality TV” that is so obviously seeped in falsehood, featuring people who may be certifiable narcissists or worse?

Dr. Ludwig replies, “Even though most people know there is a scripted component to it—they’re riveted. It happens (as we watch) Hollywood actors, too. You know, we’re more interested in Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt’s lives than in the roles they play. Their private lives are much more fascinating and compelling to us because that’s what’s real. In a culture that doesn’t want to be bored, or that might not know how to gratify themselves in other ways, this is tremendously exciting, to look at other people’s lives vicariously,”

Reality TV isn’t going away, and will certainly morph in the years ahead. The question is: into what? Is there any chance it will somehow undergo a massive sea change toward the positive? Or will it continue to find ways to lower the bar on simple human dignity? Will it continue to hypnotize mass audiences with a pool of inconsiderate characters the audience can’t help but watch?

Media watchers think it is highly unlikely that television executives are going to “green light” many projects that focus on uplifting themes, happy parents, or children who study hard and stay off drugs. TV programmers will always continue to showcase train wrecked lives full of conflict, for the easy dramatic value. It’s the angst ridden, the addicted, the physically or mentally afflicted who are most likely to be tomorrow’s reality TV stars. Many of them already are.

So what does that tell us about those in power at the TV networks?

“TV executives are business people, so they’re thinking in terms of dollars and cents and you know what? They always have,” says Dr. Ludwig. “Celebrities in historical Hollywood or in present day were always products that were there to make money off of. Their job is not to be a therapist and think about what’s healthy on behalf of the person choosing to do this. Although, would it be nice, in a perfect world, to have a TV executive who was thinking about the mental health of the other person? You know, taking them under their wing and making money at the same time? Yes, but I just don’t think that is ever going to happen.”

We get whatever we are willing to watch. TV executives reason that if people are out there watching it, maybe they’ll watch even more of it. The execs tend to ignore that part of the audience who cries out, “We only tune in because that’s all there is out there!” because they have their surveys confirming that people view these quickie reality shows by the millions. They watch even when there are plenty of higher-minded choices available to them. Maybe they watch because it’s in inexpensive way to self-medicate their stressed out brains.

At the core of all this, of course, is the belief of many network executives that they have no obligation to serve the greater good of the citizenship, to enlighten or educate. They are the ones most likely to blame their programming choices on the audience, implying that this is what we deserve because we have collectively given the message that this is what we watch. Why, we can’t even decide in this country if allowing parents to turn their homes into studios to capture their children’s potty training, bath time, and temper tantrums is okay or a form of child abuse.