Big Brother’s 28 cameras and 60 microphones are focused on 10 virtual prisoners in a TV set house in Los Angeles and millions of American couch potatoes are watching. In the era of Reality television and now Voyeur TV, the season’s biggest stars aren’t Kelsey Grammer, Jennifer Aniston or Noah Wiley but a retired Navy Seal named Rudy, a truck driver named Sue and an anorexic bible reading dairy farmer named Dirk.
“Survivor,” “Big Brother,” and “Making the Band” are the biggest thing in TV since Seinfeld and the most compelling media mutation since the webcam. Real life in prime time these days is preening, fighting, complaining, flirting, back stabbing. To be famous first you give up your privacy, your humility, and your dignity and you might even win a million bucks.
(Hosted by Christopher Lydon)
Guests:
Robert Thompson, Head of the Center for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University.