JOE MILLIONAIRE: WE’RE NOT LAUGHING WITH YOU

By Truth or Derrick

 

"Reality" TV? Give me a break.

 

That is, I hope that's not reality because if it is, our world has reached a new level on the "low scale." If our definition of "reality" is "unscripted" then the entertainment industry ought to go buy a dictionary. At least a thesaurus.

 

Recently, the statistically popular genre of Reality Television has torn apart into a few subcategories. Two of them have the strongest following. Shows like "Fear Factor" and "Jackass" make up the "Watching People Do Stupid/Really Stupid Things" category. The words "Roman empire" come to mind.

 

The next category is the "Finding Love on TV" category. "Blind Date," "Elimidate," "Tempation Island," and others like it were the founding fathers of this category. They were started so that pointless sex could be put on television and networks could feel like they were just producing "reality." Then, in an attempt to push the limits, shows like "How to Marry a Multimillionaire," "The Bachelor," and now "The Bachlorette" has brought marriage, a union that used to be for when two people really loved each other.

 

With these kinds of shows, and with networks having the mentality that they must constantly revolutionize our definition of entertainment, it becomes a competition between the networks to lower the bar without being redundant.

 

The winning network is FOX. They have created a show like "How to Marry a Multimillionaire" where several girls compete for the affection of a wealthy man, with marriage as the goal. It's called "Joe Millionaire" and the catch is that the $50,000,000 man he (and his dashing smile) says he is isn't reality; instead, he makes $19,000 (although, there has been some recent press that suggests he doesn't come from such humble circumstances. Does that mean he's a rich man pretending to be a poor man pretending to be richer?). Besides that, his name's not even Joe - it's Evan.

 

The thesis of the show is to see if the man's "true" love will still love him when they find out he's a humble construction worker. Unfortunately, the show's existence relies so much on girls doing anything for a rich man, it ends up putting the stereotype back on women that society have been trying to shake for 50 years.

 

Joe Millionaire defends the show. "I'm not trying to prove that women are gold diggers," he said. "It's just, you know, that's life. That's how people are. Really the show is about priorities and agendas. What's this person's agenda? Is it to find a guy that's loaded or is it to find-true love, you know?"

But whether the premise is respectable or not, I have to wonder why some people think this stuff is entertaining. It's not the entertainment I know to watch a bunch of silly, unscripted women acting like nitwits marry a conceited chump. However, the ratings have dictated that much of the TV-owning population enjoys it very much.

 

Honestly, folks. Let's take a minute and realize what this show is about. A man selects one out of twenty women to have the privledge of marrying him...and he's lying to all of them. It's not just your average reality show. Really.

 

I have a prediction for "Joe Millionaire" that will put it into Reality TV's smallest category: clever premises (currently, that category is so small it's empty). I bet that in the end we'll find out that the girls were the ones that were in on it the whole time and "Joe Millionaire" has been the one who only thinks he's the one in control of the situation.

 

But that's giving FOX too much credit.