reality bites

Right so last weekend i went to take part in a reality show..

i have been dying to take part in one. i believe that we are really the sixty seconds fame generation and if one does not take part in a reality contest then they will never earn the respect of their grandchildren. it's like if your grandparents werent freedom fighters and your parents weren't hippies.

now i cant sing so that put a major spanner in my ambition as the vast majority of reality shows are singing competitions (not that it prevents other people from trying). im not a star and i cant dance. big brother is for celebrities.

so finally there came along one for cricket commentary.

now when the doctor handed me my birth certificate he also certified that being born within the borders of India i was qualified from birth to not only have an opinion on cricket but to also expect other people to take it seriously. so off i went to try my luck to turn a birthright into a profession.

i once remember watching on Larry King Live (a most gay show) where an old performer lament that - people who become instant stars via reality shows are not genuine because they have never experienced the crap that people who go about it the long way have to. so they are half-baked stars.

this made a lot of sense to me and i agreed at that time. but boy have i changed my mind.

jerry sienfeld may shown up in blizzards for work facing heckling and rakhi sawant may have had to blow her competition away but dude.. its one thing to be a loser and actually show up for this thing... but to be treated like a loser by the people who organize the thing is quite sad.

ive had my suspicions about how exploitative and predatory these shows can be but actually going and being part of one i can have an informed opinion about it.

it's not the guest judges or the event management company, they are quite sweet and do a mind numbing job of dealing with a massive invasion of quite well.. its the production crew. or at least that part of the production crew which is looking to add drama to the event.

while i watched these people go about their job, tricking some people into making fools of themselves and others who did it more than voluntarily, i wondered what made them tick.

as a big fan of the comedy of sacha baron cohen, i think that stupid people are always fair game for intelligent satire. we all had shown up to be made idiots of.. so it's fine.

but when the camera crew came home and fucked with my parents i realized that i had paid a fair price for my investigative journalism.

now, being paid to talk about cricket would be awesome. but if i dont make it, i have a lot of other things i plan to do with my life. however a lot of contestants i met had put aside their whole lives for this. it was a massive deal for them.

i wonder how the producer ...

who went to peoples homes and informed them that they hadn't made and then THEY'VE MADE IT .. and then after the camera was off.. say that she didnt really know either way but had to shoot the emotion

.. live with herself. she told me that some people cried after being put through that.

i told her i didnt envy her job and she told me that if i made it, id have to take a crew and shoot reports. i dont think she understood what i meant.

but then it came to me.

these people really like doing this. its not just a job for them. they relish the fact that people will prostitute themselves for free for the sixty seconds of fame and they know it makes great entertainment. this is the age that tv is not just watched in living rooms but tv is shot in living rooms.

So for the people who become stars via reality shows , the abhijit sawants and the rahul roys, my salute to you. the amount of crap that one has to take during the course of a reality show is equivalent to an entire career of crap.

Whatever said and done, the 'full baked stars' can draw the line of the price of fame at doorsteps.