German TV- Sometimes it’s the best to be tuned out
In the struggle to improve your language skills, or simply because you don’t have a satellite dish, many of you may resort to watching German television. If you had gotten used to ARD and ZDF’s straight-faced public television programs, flipping through the so-called Privatsender, or commercial channels, may have left you flabbergasted lately. It is almost impossible to watch television these days without coming across a seemingly exchangeable cast of young, good-looking, fame-hungry twenty-somethings, whose every movement and most banal comments are being broadcast across the country. Only a year ago, your choice was between watching a group of people struggling to “survive” on a desert island (Expedition Robinson) and eavesdropping on another group locked up in a container outside Cologne, where the inhabitants performed such exciting tasks as weaving baskets and memorizing the capitals of the world (Big Brother). Call it boring, but for a German audience that had to live without The Real World all these years, this was revolutionary television. It was also just the first surges of a tidal wave of reality TV shows that was to flood the country over the next months.
Meanwhile, resourceful television executives have discovered the potent combination of a voyeuristic audience and candidates who would do almost anything for ten minutes in the spotlight, followed, at least in some cases, by a career in music or show business. From among a host of so-called Doku Soaps the viewer can choose to watch young people set up a dance club (To Clubi), form a girl band (Popstars) and take driving lessons (You Drive me Crazy). Soon we will see them climbing mountains, running a ski school, riding in a bus or in a cab. The only reason we were spared a show in which candidates would have competed in losing weight was that no advertisers could be found to endorse such a dangerous game. Nothing seems to be too trivial or embarrassing anymore. Most of all, within merely two seasons, the genre’s success has apparently been boiled down to a simple formula — sex, or at least the promise of sex, sells. Already long gone are the days when Big Brother breathlessly broadcast minutes of grainy, greenish pictures from an infrared camera that filmed the first container love affair — underneath a blanket. Today, producers strive to present the viewer with the naked truth. By outfitting the third round with a sauna, two oversized communal beds, a real-life couple and lots of good-looking singles, Big Brother does not want to leave anything to chance. At the same time, competing networks struggle to outdo each other in the same department. When Sat.1 decided to put a group of hot women and one single man together on a island (Girlscamp), archrival RTL struck back by giving one woman the choice among a group of men (House of Love). Not long ago, the same two channels fought a bitter feud over who was to be the first to broadcast a show in which a millionaire could pick a wife among dozens of women who had never seen him before. In light of this development it is hardly surprising to hear that John de Mol, father of Big Brother, is currently developing a show called I Want Your Baby, in which a woman will select a sperm donor from among a group of handsome studs.
Though reality TV shows are on a fast track toward the ever more absurd, don’t think this is a German specialty. The same thing might be happening in your homeland — while England wholeheartedly embraced Big Brother, Americans went overboard for Survivor and are currently watching how four couples are testing their fidelity on a tropical island surrounded by attractive singles trying to seduce them (Temptation Island). It seems hard to imagine that not so long ago our idea of reality on TV was watching a live broadcast of a soccer game or a State of the Union address. Maybe this is the time to watch the Oscars on March 25, see what brilliant movies you missed last year and head to your local video store for a dose of well-produced fiction instead of television’s idea of reality. <<<
