I have just finished reading the latest Daily Review column by Helen Razer, who I love and who raved as is her fashion about naughtily berating a fellow dinner party diner recently. The diner apparently has enough money and lacks enough systemic understanding to be quite deluded that the cause of all the world's problems is not, say, structural inequality and a giant oligarchy full of sociopaths, but rather cultural inequality alone.
Helen is a hardened and wizened old socialist so she was having none of that "progressive" left bullshit that seems to think an understanding of all that boring system stuff is unnecessary because all we need is some positive thinking and equal female representation and suddenly everything will be Made Great Again. Helen is a bit of sanity I like to tune into each week so I don't impale myself on a steel spike.
Helen then talked about reality TV and that's where I got hung up because today I am racked with reality TV guilt. I like to delude myself that I'm not a sucker because I refuse to watch the abject bullshit that is The Bachelor. But last night I watched right to the end that Scandinavian reality show after the Tour de France where two naked people meet up on an island and see if they want to keep seeing each other after spending a naked night resisting or not resisting the urge to screw each other with a cameraperson there.
I continued watching it after they first met up, where he swum naked onto the island after being dropped off onto a raft from a helicopter round the corner. I watched them walking naked toward each other to meet - Oso, a dark Venezuualan and Trine, a blond Dane. Trine said quietly to the camera (and the entire world and Oso when he watches it back) that she was disappointed because he was too short. I kept watching as they got to know each other during the day - what nice people! - and I watched as they slept in their open-air bed with charming wooden-roofed canopy.
I was watching still when the next day the story arc revealed itself - Trine realised very quickly after her initial dislike of his height that his dick looked all right. No, she didn't say that. Actually, it became obvious quite quickly that in fact they had lots of chemistry and had totally clicked. Even worse than that for me, they were both lovely and adorable and fleshed-out and normal and kind and not fake 😨
Then Anja with the great boobs arrived. What a spanner in the works of whatever was blossoming between Oso and Trine! Would it survive this incursion? The three of them chatted and talked and walked and their boobs and their dick and their bums and their nicely trimmed almost-Brazilianed vaginas chatted and talked and walked with them, and they drank cocktails and Oso said he was glad Anja had arrived because Trine had moved a little closer to him. And then the swarthy short Venezuelan went on a date with each woman.
Both dates were good but it was undeniable the chemistry between him and Trine. His heart and his dick were both pointing towards Trine. I'm pretty sure there was a little evidence for that in the shot as they walked to the shore for their date. There, Trine had collected a pile of stones in which she suggested they should write on the stones what they want out of a relationship. And so they did, and then they threw their "honesty" and "love" stones into the water, and then afterwards Trine told the camera in private but to the world that she felt like Oso had at the very least entered into the wall she'd built up around herself and now he was wandering around the garden and who knew, maybe she would let him into her house, and you smirk but it was very romantic and it seemed very real, it really did, and I feel oddly and sadly satisfied and hollow and ashamed all at the same time about this show, so much so that I am finding it very hard to finish this sentence, i just just want to keep running on and on and on until I run right off the edge of the page and can hide behind it in shame that I believe something real happened on a reality TV show my god the horror.
The horror.
I don't know. It caught me at a weak moment, and I'm sorry, Higher Self, and I'm fucking sorry, me who loves literature and hates reality TV but fuck, at least it wasn't The Bachelor or the Bachelorette because gee, those shows are so fucked up, so obviously fake, that I would rather watch a million Scandinavians naked on islands than all of those dumb twats on those stupid fucking flower ceremonies.
Reality TV just goes to show that yes, we are storytelling and storyloving and pattern making creatures, and we will take any story anywhere and somehow we be satisfied with it but truly, I would never be satisfied with The Bachelor.
I HATE REALITY TV. IT USES AND ABUSES THE PEOPLE WHO APPEAR ON IT. Especially that awful, nasty horrorfest that is Masterchef US (and if you don't think Masterchef is a piece of capitalist sociopathic motherfuckery, read this.
But here I am, charmed by these innocent and sweet people cavorting non-sexually with their genitals hanging out on a tropical island. Which is entirely how they want me to feel aboit a show called Adam finds His Eve or whatecer the stupid bloody thing is called.
Pic: CC0