Fiction is More Real than Truth

Reality television has really hurt us. Yeah, in the brain-cell-killing way of course, but also by weakening the authority of the moving image as a documentary tool. After all, the earliest surviving film – all 2 seconds of it - was a documentary. But when “reality” on TV is defined by oversexed egotists on the Jersey Shore (or Atlanta or the San Fernando Valley or Miami, for that matter), can we trust anything we see anymore?

It’s telling that what is considered the precursor to reality television aired on PBS. Debuting in 1973, An American Family followed the Loud family in Santa Barbara, California as they struggled with divorce, an openly gay son, and the trials of middle class life. Contrasted with The Brady Bunch, airing concurrently on network television, the 12-part documentary was a shocking and controversial antidote to the saccharine image of American life presented on scripted television.

Fast-forward 30 years and the ascendence of Survivor, The Real World, Big Brother, The Bachelor, and The Amazing Race. These reality television series – mostly game show-style competitions – promised actual human drama with none of the snooze-inducing journalistic conceit of documentarians.

It’s not shocking to anyone that reality TV is a massaged, molded, mangled form of reality. Even to call it “reality” is misleading when the “real world” is presented not as a disinterested observer documenting life’s progress but as a casted competition with beautiful people – or unattractive/obese ones, if it heightens the plot – striving for money, fame, or some kind of contrived “opportunity.”

Worse, beyond mere “creative editing,” reality shows producers have been accused of coaching their subjects through interviews, deliberately shuffling scenes, and even faking footage. In 1973, An American Family listed no writers in its credits. Since 2005, the Writers Guild of America has been actively courting reality show writers to organize.

With fake documentaries like Sasha Baron Cohen’s Borat and Casey Affleck and Joaquin Phoenix’s I’m Still Here plus millions of YouTube mini-docs of varying authenticity (and worth), who tells us what’s real? Are reality shows less real than fiction because they sell the aura of authenticity? And even though we know reality shows are fake, are we still unconsciously duped because a worn aphorism – “truth is stranger than fiction” – has been ingrained in us all?

Scripted television programs are fictitious but do they teach us any less about the human condition than a vapid reality series? You need only watch dramas such as Law & Order or The Wire to see that modern dramas hold more of a mirror to the world than, say, The Apprentice. Even a sitcom like The Office captures the ennui of the corporate world more closely than any reality show ever could. After all, who would you rather watch: an actor portraying a real person or a real person trying to act?

Tonight on the Academy Awards, the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature will be presented to a film you've never heard of. Meanwhile, four of the 10 Best Picture nominees are engaging dramas based on true events. The documentary still lives, just in fictional form.