Pop Life

This week Survivor II will start airing in the same time slot as last year’s program, 8 p.m. Thursday nights. Reality TV was last year’s rage, and Temptation Island’s success proves that the public’s appetite for this stuff is far from being whetted. So as CBS awaits to see if it can blow Friends out of the water, one has to wonder just how long television viewers will be fascinated with this stuff.

The game-show craze started by Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? has already died out, with Millionaire the only one left standing—and even it is struggling with diminished ratings. Reality TV, on the other hand will be around for quite a while—if MTV’s Real World is any indicator. Survivor producer Mark Burnett may think it’s the adventure aspect of his show that people enjoy, but really it’s the thorny relationships that get them hooked. Much as with Real World, viewers get vicarious thrills out of watching people grow to hate each other or screw each other over.

Temptation Island may be an even clearer example of why this is appealing—it’s the equivalent of televised gossip. Consider the fact that one of the biggest stories of this past year was Meg Ryan’s affair with Russell Crowe. And aside from the fact that he may have violated the Constitution, former President Clinton’s recent scandal was centered on the extramarital details. In coming up with its latest show, FOX basically asked, “What could be more fun than hearing about an affair?” The answer: trying to engineer one.

Unlike Survivor, though, Temptation Island is turning out to be more like a train wreck. The extent to which FOX is willing to try and induce an infidelity has become more and more reprehensible every week—it has almost become an exercise in seeing if the show’s producers can make someone cry. So why doesn’t this drive viewers away instead of increasing their numbers? Well, if you have watched the Real World over the past 10 years, you know that people apparently take a perverse pleasure in others’ humiliation. There are game shows in Japan centered around the idea of seeing just how far someone will debase himself to win a prize. Americans willingly do this even without the incentive of a prize—something you already know if you’ve ever seen MTV’s Jackass.

Using relationships as a game, though, may eventually come back and bite the FOX network in the ass. If you want to know when the reality craze will come to a stop, it’s when someone gets hurt, badly. Either someone will end up getting physically hurt on one of these Survivor-style shows, or someone playing in one of these emotional minefields is going to hurt someone else. Violence is more often than not an act of passion. I predict that, much like the murder induced by an episode of the daytime talk show Jenny Jones a couple of years ago, someone will get pushed too far for our amusement and snap. Except this time it will be on prime time.

Ready for his close up, Mr. DeMille

Speaking of Russell Crowe, word from the Crowe camp is that the reason he gave Meg Ryan the heave-ho was because he found her too Hollywood and too obsessed with glamour. I find this terribly hard to swallow. Either this man has a perverse sense of humor, or he’s not remotely self-aware.

Crowe is the star of last year’s biggest Hollywood formula epic and likely Best Picture Oscar shoo-in, Gladiator. Like Johnny Depp, Keanu Reeves, Steven Seagal, Kevin Bacon, and even his ex’s ex Dennis Quaid, Crowe has a band and imagines himself a rocker. And after the Golden Globes, Crowe reportedly bounced back from being shot down at the bar by Leelee Sobieski by shacking up with Courtney Love. All he has left to do is date Winona Ryder, and L.A. will be ready to give him the key to the city. Nosiree, Russell Crowe is as down-to-earth as they come.

The kids aren't all right

This past week at the Golden Globes, there were many moments of uncomfortable embarrassment: Sarah Jessica Parker’s rambling, hyper acceptance speech; Julia Roberts’ inability to hide her disappointment when she had to announce Ang Lee as best director; Elizabeth Taylor’s confusion about listing the nominees before announcing the winner. But nothing gave me the willies worse than Haley Joel Osment. In a move I am going to assume was thought up by the producers, the 12-year-old strolled up to the mic and singled out the equally young star of the British hit Billy Elliott. After congratulating him on his success, Osment informed him that his film was warming the hearts of people everywhere. Watching these two minors interact as if they were big-time Hollywood hotshots was intensely nauseating. But it is another example of the bizarre fetish America seems to have with its young.