Experiencing reality (TV)

I don’t watch a lot of television, but I confess to having a soft spot for a good competition / elimination.   Amazing Race, MasterChef are probably my favorite US and UK variants, respectively, but it’s hard to compare US and UK takes on the reality format unless you have two shows built on the same premise airing at about the same time.

Surprisingly, that opportunity came from Art.

Aspiring artists, hoping to break into the big time, showed their works to a panel of three judges, two men and one woman, hoping to be selected for a spot in a gallery exhibition to be attended by wealthy patrons and influential critics.  In the US, the show was Work of Art, airing on cable channel Bravo; the UK featured Show Me the Monet on BBC2.  You can see clips from each show by clicking on the two embeds below.

Work of Art–Episode 4, Part 1

Show Me the Monet–Fiona Cockburn

The BBC program is a bit like Antiques Roadshow: artists bring their work in for the “Hanging Committee” to review.  If they score well on originality, technical skill, and emotional impact with at least two judges, then the work goes on to the exhibition.  Immediately, we learn whether the artist managed to sell it. 

There’s a lot of drama in having each artist judged on a single representative work for less than 10 minutes. These are charged emotional encounters, putting forward very personal works and the artists really struggle to keep composure as the judges dissect them.

I’m absolutely fascinated by Charlotte Mullins perfect hair and unflappable poise, but enjoy art critic David Lee’s remarks the best.  Still, the format is so low-key and the entrants go by so quickly and repetitively, it’s hard to get involved with them, and the show wears thin quickly.

Bravo’s show is more like the Apprentice: artists are given a task (creating cover art for a novel), materials, and a time limit, then judged on the results that they were able to product.  The worst performers are voted off by the critics, and the remainder go to a further round, eventually arriving at an exhibition.

The critics are completely faceless; the engagement is with the contestants who each build a presence and a narrative over the weeks.  The artists have to work fast and are outside of their best medium, so the technical quality of the art feels low and and the participants have little emotional investment in what they create.  There’s relief or disappointment after the judging, but none of the confidence shattering dismissal of  the British judging.

I think that the differences in the shows are reflective of the differences in audiences, the difference in culture.  Britain prefers an examination; the US a performance.  The UK wants art, the US prizes style: one focuses on the work, the other on the individual.  I think it’s a reflection of the respective societies as much as it’s a lens on the artists.

Neither show was a hit with the media: the Guardian and Time were critical, but both Monet and Work are coming back for a second season.  I would prefer to blend the two: the highbrow seriousness of Monet’s judges, the extended opportunities for the artists to show their personality and creativity in Work.

Until then, there’s MasterChef, which is ironically judging as much by artistic appeal as by culinary taste.

Fashionable, but does it sell clothes?

The holiday shopping season is underway, and Maastricht’s merchants are trying to attract shopper’s attention.  These are a few of my favorites, but I have to wonder if they are as effective at selling clothes as at stopping traffic.

Or is that one and the same?

 

 

  

Reflecting on Palin’s Alaska

During the holiday break, I spent a couple of hours with Sarah Palin.  More exactly, I spent a couple of hours with her television documentary, Sarah Palin’s Alaska.  I came away with really mixed feelings about the underlying message in the show, and have been trying to figure out how to write about it, separate from my visceral disagreement with her politics.

So let me give this a try.

The underlying premise of the show is that folks in Alaska are living in closer to everyday contact with the natural world and with traditional ways of living in that world.  Physically, they are tested and hardened by it, sometimes come into violent conflict with it, but ultimately taught and sustained by it.  Intellectually, they see simple and obvious ways that the world works, based on eternal rules and relationships.  Morally, they believe in their own exceptionalism, free the blindness caused by civilization and by sophistry.

Kate Gosselin and her family are invited onto a camping trip with the Palins, learning about this world.  She learns to have courage (and a gun), to be prepared (and to bring raingear), to open her mind (and learn from her kids) about the reality of life.  Ultimately, Kate just gets cold and wet, collects up her brood, and quits, boarding the plane home to warm, dry civilization.  Sarah laments that people just can’t see the beauty or understand the meaning of a simple life away on a riverbank.

I do agree that we lose something when we cut ourselves off from the natural world.  When we immerse into a wilderness experience it is invigorating and cleansing.  There are, without question, false complexities that we fill our minds with every day that keep us from doing our best and appreciating the things around us.  That is why I go on vacation and why contact with river runners and bush pilots is so refreshing.

But, it’s wrong to go all the way to saying that this is the way life should be for everyone.

The folks in Sarah’s Alaska are comfortable in the wilderness because they stand on the shoulders of centuries of hard civilizing work to get them there: the plane, the bus, the gun, the tents, the gore-tex, the prepared foods.

The settlement and preservation of these lands are a result of political will, compromise among competing interests, courage and vision among the people who’s beliefs they rudely dismiss.

Many of us do share their reverence for the natural world and a belief in human exceptionalism, but also see our responsibility for stewardship of the natural spaces and wildlife and believe in creating a heritage for future generations.

I find myself feeling ambivalent as a result: both agreeing and disagreeing with the premise.  There are things we have forgotten because we stopped living simply and close to the land.  But in returning to the land, we shouldn’t forget how and why we became civilized.

The Biggest Loser

Christmas week is always a busy one: lights to be strung, a tree to trim, gifts to be wrapped, cards to write.  By evening, I just want to set the list aside, pour a glass of wine, and sink into a chair where I can bathe in the warm glow of the television.

Reality shows have become much more numerous than I remember.  Many, though, seem less of a competition than a showcase for the loud, foolish, and strange.  America’s funniest…dumbest…The Biggest Loser…World’s worst chef.  I know that Britain is not all University Challenge and Masterchef, but I don’t remember this density of ‘Big Brother’-style fare either.

Reality shows of any sort seem relatively rare on Dutch television: a cooking competition and a good-natured version of Survivor are the two I regularly encounter.

So I sip my wine and nurse the simple question of whether Europeans prefer aspirational shows while Americans seek out contestants who they can feel superior to.

Coincidently, Slate magazine published a piece the next day that explored the nature of American narcissism: are we self absorbed because we believe we are exceptional, or because we lack self-confidence?  In the reflected glow of reality television, I think it’s the latter.  No matter how wobbly our own competence, it’s better than the women sleeping with their sister’s boyfriends or the men racing supercharged lawnmowers.

A friend suggested that it may have begun with the quiz show scandals,unmasking intellectuals as cheats.  Or perhaps it has to do with the current wave of populism, where elites are giving way to Everyman on every level.

Or maybe it’s just that, after a hard day’s work, nobody really wants to be challenged that they don’t know enough or their dinner presentation was inadequate.  Escapism, pure and simple. 

Even if it is a date with The Biggest Losers.