Reality Reiterated: Time to Cancel "The Real World" and "Big Brother?"

Big Brother and the Real World

As head of household in my own mind, I would like to take a moment to bid farewell to another season of both Big Brother and The Real World.

I’ll begin by asking a largely rhetorical question: Is it time to permanently close the doors on these two shows? The Real World began in 1992 and has since enjoyed 24 seasons and more than 500 episodes.

Big Brother started in 2000 and we’ve since watched 12 seasons and about 408 episodes. That, my friends, is more than 900 hours of viewing opportunities. But what do we really get out of these shows anymore?

I remember the first few seasons of The Real World and how it was such a groundbreaking show. For those of you fortunate enough to have seen the San Francisco crew (Season Three), you remember Pedro Zamora who opened the eyes of a new generation of Americans to the horrors of the AIDS epidemic.

Back then, the ideas for these shows were fresh. Sure, “reality” as a broad term has been around much longer than we realize, but the show about “strangers” who “start getting real” has long since lost the magic that makes it worth watching.

And as I watched this week’s season finale, I realized what a shame it is that the younger generation of gay and bi guys growing up on this Real World are really missing out on something.

With whom can they identify on the show? Preston? This gay kid had a rough life and I’m impressed he hasn’t followed that dark path, but really, his biggest contribution to the house was urinating on Ryan’s toothbrush. After getting to know Ryan, I could see how one would be forced to such extremes, but it’s not a shining moment for Preston. Or us.

So the housemates said goodbye to New Orleans, a city I miss every day, but the season overall lacked the heart of the city.

But I don’t think this is localized to New Orleans. With each new season of The Real World, the show becomes a shadow of its former self with a generic cast, each of whom fits a stereotype and puts them in a house that could really be any house in any city. MTV should stop spending the money going on location and just build a house on a lot like, say, the Big Brother house.

Speaking of Big Brother (did you see that coming?), did everyone watch the finale? Um, anyone?

They look as bored as we were

I didn’t think so. Well, for those of you who polished off this 30th episode of the season, let’s recap: Hayden won.

I’ve openly complained about CBS’ greedy need to air three episodes of this show per week, and I’ve also complained about the fact that as the cast dwindled, there was less and less exciting material to fill those three hours with.

The two-hour finale was no exception.

Thankfully, the lovely and talented Julie Chen was there to emcee the event, and we were treated to flashbacks, discussions of the flashbacks, a reunion of the cast, ceremonies, and more unnecessary “final” speeches than you could stuff in the ample space between Lane’s ears. (Too soon?)

It’s probably less difficult for you to decide whether or not this show should still be on the air. If I remember correctly, the ratings for the series were abysmal from early on its run. And like Preston, Ragan (as has been discussed in the comments over the weeks) will likely not be elected our next goodwill ambassador.

Do we care? Do we want our reality gays to live up to some unattainable ideal that no man could ever achieve? I don’t think we do.

In fact, at this point I think we’d all just settle for a gay man who doesn’t urinate on toothbrushes.