Real(ity) Pains

Has reality television caused anarchy in TV station boardrooms around the world? Or is it a leading resource for the young and the old? YEN investigates…

Next time you feel guilty for tuning into Big Brother instead of doing something more productive, like reading a book, making your own clothes or, hell, clipping your toenails, remember this: reality TV is educational. And not just in that media school way either. Watching the right reality shows can give you valuable insights into different cultures, international politics and even human rights. Seriously.

THE AMBASSADOR - ISRAEL
What to do when the rest of the world thinks you’re big, bad and kinda scary? Find a pretty and articulate young local to sing your praises, of course. Realising Ariel Sharon and the Israeli diplomatic corps weren’t doing the greatest PR job when a report revealing that the country was on its way to international pariah-dom was leaked in 2004, television executives decided to take matters into their own hands, recruiting 14 bright young Israelis to compete for the title of Israel’s “ambassador”, working for a year at a New York advocacy group. On the micro scale, at least, The Ambassador’s Apprentice-style challenges seem to have worked – the young diplomats managed to convince 25 passers by on Paris’s Champs Elysees to book a trip to Israel on a single rainy day. The macro results will have to wait.

TERRORISM IN THE GRIP OF JUSTICE - IRAQ
If you thought Michael rubbing his penis in Gianna’s hair on Big Brother was gross and inappropriate, this show will have you writing to Amnesty International in protest. Terrorism In The Grip of Justice, which follows an elite Iraqi security force as they capture and extract confessions from terrorists or insurgents (take your pick), has got rebels bombing Al-Iraqiya (the state-run station that screens the program) and critics arguing that it breaches the Geneva Convention. While most reality shows make ordinary people extraordinary, this one does opposite, showing what were once intimidating figures unmasked and humiliated.

SPETS - RUSSIA
What happens when Russia’s own real life Tony Soprano decides he doesn’t like the way organised crime is portrayed on TV? He creates a show of his own, that’s what. Spets, produced by Russian mobster Vitali “Spets” Dyomochka, is a seven-part series about life in Vladivostok, in Russia’s “wild east”. The show isn’t strictly “reality” – based on events that happened several years ago, it’s arguably more James Frey memoir style - but it does provide an interesting insider’s perspective on life in the underworld. And this time it’s the police who are complaining about being misrepresented; while the gangsters, including Dyomochka, play themselves, the police are played by actors.

SPERM RACE - GERMANY
It might sound tacky, hilarious or vaguely pornographic, but Sperm Race is not that kind of reality program. Glossing over the fun stuff like donation and fertilisation, the show is sexy in name only. Upstanding and scientific, Sperm Race pits the sperm of twelve men, including two German celebrities and a health nut, against one another in a race towards a chemical substance almost-but-not-quite identical to a human egg. The winner is awarded the title of Germany’s most fertile man and a shiny red Porsche. But it’s not quite as mad as it sounds. With 1.8 million men infertile and 30 per cent of women choosing to go childless, fertility is a big issue in Germany - and according to the show’s creators, there are a lot of disappointed would-be grandparents out there, just waiting to find a nice virile man to set their daughters up with.

HUMAN RESOURCES - ARGENTINA
While upwardly mobile North Americans compete for the chance to fill the very pricey shoes of Donald Trump on The Apprentice, 24 per cent unemployment rates in the early 2000s left their South American counterparts with more modest aspirations. With more than half the population living under the poverty line in 2002, when the program was launched, thousands of Argentineans would turn up each episode for the chance to win themselves a one-year contract in a blue collar job. With contestants subjected to confessional interviews and the winner usually the person with the most heart wrenching sob story, the show was criticised for treating unemployment as a soap opera, but winners were generally just happy to have scored a job.

AUSTRALIAN PRINCESS - AUSTRALIA
Those crazy antipodeans! When nice Tassie lass Mary Donaldson bagged herself a prince to get hitched to, Australians conveniently forgot that Britain had already given them a monarchy and set about searching out Australia’s second princess. In typical egalitarian tradition, Australia’s princess needed neither be born into nor marry royalty, and instead was selected on the basis of her ability to make polite conversation, put up with people insulting her appearance and make a good cup of tea. With no boofy blokes eligible to take the prize a la Big Brother, the crown ended up going to wisecracking surfie chick Ally Mansell.

- Rachel Hills

Published in YEN, August/September 2006.