Lesley's Letters - The World of Reality TV - Spring 09 PDF Print E-mail
Written by Lesley Crewe   

The world of reality TV just might be scarier than the horrors on the nightly news.

The world is a scary place. I've stopped watching the news for my own sanity. That's a terrible admission, but it's true. My nervous system isn't wired to hear about disaster after disaster without jumping off the nearest cliff. When the end comes, I'll have my head happily buried in the sands of time.

To keep myself from thinking about the state of the world, I've become a cracked addict. A cracked addict is a person who watches an endless stream of reality television. I like to feel superior and say I watch this drivel so that I can scoff at the idiots on these shows or use them as fodder for some future novel, but that's not entirely true. I'm not sure what the fascination is.

It's probably because both our kids have left the nest and hubby and I are the most boring people on the planet. We have nothing else to do but watch television in the evening. Of course, he wouldn't be caught dead watching reality shows, which he mentions every time he walks by my recliner, but after all these years I'm good at tuning him out.


It all started with Project Runway. I can't sew on a button, so my fascination with clothing designers knows no bounds. Not that I'd ever fit into any of their creations, but the agony they go through to produce a garment while under a deadline rivets me to my seat.

I then got hooked on America's Next Top Model. I have no excuse for this, other than that I'm very familiar with hormonal teenagers and it kind of reminded me of when I lived in a university dorm decades ago; all that bitchiness gone berserk and no parent to stop the slaughter.

There's one reality show I'm not ashamed of admitting that I watch. So You Think You Can Dance is a wonderful show. These kids are amazing! Not that I've ever voted for any of them, but I admire them all. I took ballet and tap when I was a little kid, along with my sister and cousin. Since I was the chubby one, I didn't get to wear the blue tutu with a satin bodice like they did at the dance recital. I was cast as the Pied Piper and had to wear black slacks and a shirt that made me look like a midget referee. I've never forgotten the humiliation, but luckily I don't hold a grudge.   

I'm getting sick of Canadian and American Idol because I can't believe there are that many delusional people in the world, and since I'm trying to avoid the world at the moment, I don't want to be reminded of some of my fellow inhabitants.

Against my better judgment, I stooped to watching The Bachelor last night. That's how cracked I've become! I have to admit my mouth was agape for the entire two hour season premiere. I could not believe that supposedly normal women were freaking out and pretending to be in love with a man they'd never even met! Saying they wanted to be his wife and admitting it to him, to the TV camera, and to the nation! The world really has gone mad!

Since I was frozen to my seat with disbelief, I even watched the show that came on after that; some horrible thing about conceited people vying for the title of "Most Beautiful." What they don't know is that they're being judged on their inner beauty, so they threw off the snotty bitch that looked through people's personal files and walked ahead of a man trying to open a door while he carried trays of coffee cups. I think the supposed lesson was lost on her. She dismissed the judges with her hand, snapped her fingers and said, "I'm outta here!" before she stalked off.

What a great girl. Her mother must be so proud.

The trouble is, now I have to keep watching to see which snob is kicked off next! Also, I don't trust this bachelor man to pick the nice girl in the group. I'm afraid he'll be taken in by "the stalker" or the dental hygienist who put on fake rotten teeth when she first met him or the weirdo from Canada who insisted he add condiments to his hot dog so she could test her theory that good guys like mustard and psychos like sauerkraut!  

Huh?

I think I've joined the dark side. I need to come back into the light. The reality of our world can't possibly be as awful as reality television. Can it?
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Lesley Crewe
About the author:
Lesley grew up on the streets of Montreal, but came to Cape Breton to live over thirty years ago. She has had the same hubby for that length of time, too.....she's either incredibly lucky in love, or just lazy. They have three children, Paul, Sarah, and Joshua who died in 1985 of SIDS. She wrote a column about family life in The Cape Bretoner Magazine for five years and then started writing novels to avoid cleaning the house. Her first book, Relative Happiness, was launched in 2005, her second novel, Shoot Me, was published in 2006. They've both been bestsellers in her part of the world which still blows her mind. Her third book, Ava Comes Home, was published in September 2008. She spent the summer writing the screenplay for the movie based on her first novel.

The happy news is she's not suffering from empty nest in the least! However, she is grumpy and menopausal and can't remember squat.

Visit Lesley's website at www.lesleycrewe.com.
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