In a recent interview with New York magazine, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who wrote a blazingly homophobic dissenting opinion in Lawrence v. Texas, – the recent case that is generally heralded as being responsible for the rash of legislation and changes furthering gay-rights, including same-sex marriage, that we’ve seen in the U.S. over the last few months – an opinion which he now prefers classifying as his standing up for the belief that “Americans were within their rights in protecting themselves and their families from a life-style that they believe to be immoral and destructive” (a right I just can’t seem to find in the Constitution unless you consider hate to qualify as the pursuit of happiness) instead of the anti-gay rant that it was, fell back on the time honored I’m-Not-A-Bigot excuse of ‘my best friend is a ______ (fill in the blank with whatever minority you just made a bigoted remark about). Or at least made a noble attempt at using it though he slightly missed the mark by stating, “I have friends that I know, or very much suspect, are homosexual. Everybody does.” Not that Scalia’s homophobia is news. Any more than my love of run-on sentences is. What was surprising in his interview, however, was the Justice admitted to being a big fan of Duck Dynasty (a reality TV show that follows the antics of a rural, southern, backwoods family who run a company that makes duck calls).

You’d think that the television viewing habits of a man who supposedly is one of the country’s greatest minds (though considering he was appointed to the bench by a B-movie actor, that bar was set at its minimal level) would be more of an intellectual nature. But I guess when Honey Boo Boo is in reruns you have to fill in your evening hours with something other than masturbating to Hannity. On a less I just threw up in my mouth note, it is good to know Scalia, by way of choice in television programming, is in touch with the average U.S. citizen, even if it is only his preferred demographic of American. Reality TV is the preferred genre in modern America. And with the average American watching 34 hours of TV each week, that may be more reality than is good for our country.

I’m not much of a television viewer; compared to my fellow countryman I fall far short. Even though I have a line-up of over 150 channels to watch, the best I seem able to do is vegetate in front of the wide-screen about 10 hours a week. If I can work up the energy to hit my remote’s ON button I usually watch the comedic version of daily news programming – The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, and The Factor. When HBO gets it right, I try to tune in to at least one rebroadcast of their more popular shows like True Blood and Game of Thrones, though admittedly I miss more episodes than I catch. And whether it’s the UFC or Bellator, any MMA card is worthy of my television time. But that’s more about my fondness for looking at ripe, almost naked male flesh than it is about watching TV. And a least on the internet they show dick.

My satellite dish provider wants to sign me up for an extended service that would allow me to record up to six television programs at one time, but I’m generally unable to find even one show I want to watch, much less being confronted with the unenviable chore of selecting one out of six. I couldn’t tell you the last time I watched a broadcast network’s programming. Or actually I can: I saw part of the Emmy’s this year while hanging at a friend’s house. Of the shows up for Best Comedy and Best Drama, I’d heard of four, had seen one, and other than the shows’ name knew nothing of the two that won in their respective categories. I think I suck at being an American. It’s not that I don’t try. It’s just that most programming is reality-based these days and just doesn’t fit my version of reality.

I watched an episode of Honey Boo Boo, just to see what all the hype was about. A fat – even by American standards – southern family who consider road kill haute cuisine behaving badly just didn’t cut it for me. Although I did give them points for having a gay uncle. Not that having a member of the rainbow brigade is unusual, a lot of reality shows play the gay card. I haven’t seen Duck Dynasty, but since it gets a thumbs up from Justice Scalia I’m assuming gays, if any, on that show are only of the suspected variety. Nonetheless reality shows do tend to grab my attention when a gay cast member is promised.

When I heard about the Shahs of Sunset, which was supposed to follow the trials and tribulations of a group of Persians living in L.A. – including a member of our tribe, I thought that might finally be a reality show I could enjoy. I was expecting a show that explored the problems of being Muslim in America post 9/11. Instead it was a group of whining, affluent second-generationers who drank too much and then either passed out or threw up. Or both. You’d think their disgraceful carrying-ons would have resulted in the Ayatollahs back home calling a fatwa on the cast members. But those good clerics probably decided the hell they were living was worse than any religious punishment they could ukase (and a quick shout out to Justice Scalia for my new Word of the Day, as in: don’t be an ukase when writing The Factor.)

Because my reality is failing to learn from past mistakes, I tuned in to Breaking Amish too, thinking I’d learn something about what it is like living the Amish life-style in America today. Instead it was a group of whining not affluent second-generationers who drank too much and then either passed out or threw up. Or both. Unlike with the Muslims, the Amish community responded with their version of the fatwa and Shunned the cast members. Bur then who wouldn’t? Not that shunning is necessarily a bad thing. From the looks of the Amish shown on the show, a bit more shunning of second cousins might improve the gene pool. I tried watching the second season too; there was an obviously gay Mennonite boy who I expected would end up coming out sometime during the season. Instead he revealed he had a girlfriend, made it official, and set up the rule that they could not kiss before being married and could only hug on special occasions.

I guess even in reality television closeted gay boys who can’t even admit to themselves they like dick – even when like Scalia, everyone else suspects they are gay – try the “I have a girlfriend but we don’t have sex’ route. Proving that just as in real life, there is always romance available for a fat, ugly, desperate woman who doesn’t realize how sought after she would be in the lesbian community. Which could be a great basis for the next hit reality TV show, an idea I’d claim copyright rights to but I noticed there is a new show that follows a bunch of fat white women from Alaska who travel to Florida to find mates so I guess that one will soon be covered.

I would quite trying to fit in with my fellow Americans by finding a reality TV show I can call my own, except almost all of them have a gay angle. Or at least those other than the ones that Justice Scalia watches do. For all that is bad with reality programming, it does deserve a tip of the hat for bringing The Gays into middle-America’s homes. The first reality-based show, according to TV Guide, was An American Family, a 12-episode documentary that aired on PBS in 1973 and which featured the family’s openly gay son Lance. Closer to the modern version of reality shows, MTV’s The Real World, which debuted in 1992, too included a gay cast member and has continued to do so each season since then (although sometimes it’s a bisexual or lesbian). Despite what Justice Scalia thinks of American life, MTV’s version of the real world has homosexuals in it. And not just suspected ones.

I remember watching the first few seasons of The Real World and being thrilled that I finally was being represented on TV. And whether I thought the gay of the season was hot or not, he and the rest of the cast were always attractive. At least in looks if not in deportment. Which may not have much to do with the real world, but does with Nielsen ratings. Attractive folk behaving badly was the standard for reality shows for years. And then Jersey Shore came along, replacing attractiveness with a willingness to behave even more badly than usual. I watched an episode of that show to see what all the hype was about too. And all I could think was how completely butt-ugly every cast member was. It was the first reality show that I was glad about not having a gay cast member. Or at least any that were out.

I still can’t fathom why Jersey Shore was so popular. Or why the television studios decided its popularity was in its willingness to televise the antics of ugly people. But that’s what they went with and today’s shows strive to out-do each other in casting truly freakish looking people. And I’m not talking about the real freaks on the short-lived Freakshow, the breeders who can’t stop themselves from breeding, the little people on Little People, Big World, or the current crop of elected Tea Party members . . . oh wait, that’s Fox News, a different brand of reality programming that too has little to do with the real world.

Which brings me to the subject of today’s post: the MTV hit show Catfish. Psychologist Michael Campbell likens some reality shows — and their negative premises — to ancient blood sport. He compares the social rejection and the terms used by the shows’ stars to describe the rejection to the physical pain of blood sport experienced, and on display, in the coliseum games of ancient Rome. A more modern day analogy would be how and why people can not drive past a car wreck without slowing down and looking. There but for the grace of god go I has a strong pull; viewing someone else’s misery – even when self-inflicted – makes you feel better about yourself and your own life.

Your life may not be perfect, but it’s gotta be better than being an obese redneck living next to the train tracks whose entire claim to fame is whoring out your fat five-year-old daughter in dubiously named beauty pageants. Unless, of course, you can grab your promised 15 minutes of fame by embarrassing yourself by appearing on a reality TV show. And since TV no longer cares how unattractive you are, that’s a door open to every American who lacks the pride necessary to keep them from willingly becoming a national laughingstock.

Which in and of itself would not provide enough human fodder for the dearth of reality-based television shows that make up the majority of programming today. Except that in addition to the thrill of watching the modern version of the Christians v Lions, Campbell says that people watch reality television because of their need for social connection. Huh. Back when your viewing choice was between watching Bonanza and My Three Sons, social connections were done face to face. Now we have the internet instead and social connections rely on Facebook. The reality of the real world has been replaced with the reality-based television programming-like world of social media where fiction is preferred over fact. And when your social life depends on a high-speed internet connection, the real world, evidently, no longer has any basis in your version of reality.

Catfish, in case your television viewing habits suck even worse than mine, follows two gay guys who offer their investigative services to social media addicts who have formed loving relationships with someone they met on-line but who for some strange reason has, up until the broadcast, refused to meet in person despite years of professing their love and in some cases even proposing or agreeing to marriage. In each episode the two use a little known internet site called Google to quickly discover how big of a liar the mystery man or women really is. Which often turns out to be a man representing himself as a woman. And who even more often turns out to be extremely big. And ugly. The gay guy who hosts the show – the one who is not prematurely gray – always looks suitable shocked at this discovery. Sometimes there’s a twist, like every other episode, and both internet users involved turn out to be big and ugly. Although in the PC world of MTV you can’t say big and ugly and have to go with lonely and misunderstood instead.

In his interview with New York magazine, Justice Scalia responded to a question about how his time on the Supreme Court would be viewed in 50 years by saying that he has never been the custodian of his legacy, whatever in the hell that is supposed to mean. More on point, he added, “When I’m dead and gone, I’ll either be sublimely happy or terribly unhappy.” Those who appear on Catfish seem to have adopted that mantra for their everyday existence; they are sublimely happy while deep in a relationship in which the only thing they touch is their keyboard, terribly unhappy when they discover the hottie they are in love with is just as fat, ugly, and socially deficient as they are. And/or is a member of their own gender. Regardless, in many episodes the two get over it and continue with their romance. Which is a good thing because after appearing on Catfish I can’t think your future dating prospects can be all that good.

I’d like to think Catfish is an anomaly, a probably scripted attempt at reality television that has little to no bearing in the real world, that internet users can’t really be that dense, that people are not actually willing to consider themselves in a relationship with someone they have never met even if they have been chatting on-line and exchanging text messages daily for several years. The story that broke last year of Manti Te’o, the Notre Dame football player who got catfished by a fellow Samoan who just happened to turn out to be a guy (uh, and yup, fat and ugly too) proves otherwise. But then the healthy bank accounts of moneyboys in Thailand prove how suspectable – and unrealistic – people can be when love, or at least some version of it, is involved.

Punters addicted to the pleasures of Thailand are old-hands at the catfish phenomena; hot looking guys met on Gay Romeo who, when they show up at your hotel room no longer hit the hot mark but do often qualify for the fat and or ugly casting requirement of today’s reality television shows are far too often the norm. And the punters, just like the gay guy who hosts Catfish – the one who is not prematurely gray – always look suitable shocked at this discovery. But then at worst, that experience only costs them 500 baht in taxi money. Those who instead fall in love with a Thai moneyboy pay much more on a continued basis for the pleasure of having a boyfriend they get to see in person once a week yearly.

I’m not sure how long Catfish can run with its one-note premise, but MTV should consider a spin-off set in Pattaya. They could call it Game Of Crones, in which we follow the lives of a group of fat and ugly sexpats who routinely get catfished by young local boys and who drink too much and then either pass out or throw up. Or both. Throw in the local Buddhist community shunning them and I think you’ve got a hit on your hands. It could be the most real reality-based show on television. I’d claim copyright rights on that idea to, but I’m busy developing a reality television show based on ChristianPFC’s quest for a boy to fill the perfect pair of underwear for under 300 baht. I’m just not sure if today’s average television viewer will believe it.

Related Posts You Might Enjoy: