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Rushdie's Reality

In: Social Issues

Submitted By bear1
Words 804
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I have long felt that reality television is contributing to the moral downfall of modern society. This is validated, yet again, by Salman Rushdie in his 2001 article, “Reality TV: A Dearth of Talent and the Death of Morality.” Much like Rushdie, I avoid being pulled in to the idea that watching someone else demean and humiliate themselves for the sake of fame and fortune is an acceptable, moral attitude. However, the media has placed it in nearly every variety of television programming possible. The “tawdry narcissism” (p.4) of society today is blatantly displayed for all the world to see in these programs. Has society today no shame? Have we, as a society, completely forgotten the virtues that separate us from all other forms of life on planet Earth? Is this truly the example that children should see as role models for how life should be lived?
Rushdie asserts that people are doing this because “famous and rich are now the two most important concepts in western society, and ethical questions are simply obliterated by the potency of their appeal.” (p.6) These concepts are leading people to believe it is ok to “be exhibitionistic.” (p.6) The things people will do for money! These reality TV shows started out mundane and boring. This made it acceptable for the viewers’ lives to be mundane and boring. They give the impression that this is a “normal” way of living. Never mind the fact that the producers of these programs have engineered the reality the contestants are living in, going so far as to create fake relationships in some cases. Fake relationships tarnish society’s ideas concerning morality simply because it is a lie. No morality will be found there.
To make matters worse, there is the outcome of combining “the contestants’ exhibitionism [with] the viewers’ voyeurism [creating] a picture of a society sickly in thrall to what Saul Bellow called ‘event

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