A baby is the prize in the latest reality television show in the United States. It has provoked outrage but there could be even worse to come, writes Ian Kilroy
When a baby is the winner's prize in a reality TV show, we can safely say that reality TV has gone too far. The ABC network's Be My Baby programme, recently broadcast on American television, may have been intended as documentary journalism, but in presenting adoption as a competitive made-for-TV event, it crossed the Rubicon of taste.
Here's the scenario: 16-year-old Jessica is about to have a baby she feels she cannot provide for; five couples are desperate to adopt; as ABC's cameras roll, all five couples go through a competitive process to win the grand prize of a baby boy; with two interview rounds in the contest, the ultimate winner is picked by birth-mother Jessica, described as the "judge and jury" of the process. Unsurprisingly, there was outrage when the TV trailers for the programme aired.
ABC promoted the Be My Baby slot of its 20/20 programme as "the ultimate reality show". A "nerve-racking elimination round" was promised. This was to be just like Joe Millionaire, The Bachelor, or any one of those other reality TV shows that have taken over the airwaves. In the scramble for ratings, a new low was reached.
It is shameful to exploit people at emotionally vulnerable moments solely for entertainment value - and that is exactly what reality TV does. In appealing to the voyeur in us all, reality television relies on our basest instincts: the part of us that wants to see others humiliated; the part of us that feels superior at the spectacle of another's suffering.
The demonisation of Jade on Big Brother a few years ago was bad enough. The cartoon characterisation that the selective reality TV edit bestows on a person is always manipulative.
But ABC offends on another score: it blurs the lines between responsible journalism and exploitative entertainment. It is true that Be My Baby was more documentary than reality TV. The adoption process depicted would have happened even without the ABC cameras present.
Yet using the format and storytelling techniques of reality TV for journalistic documentary is wholly inappropriate. A baby is not a prize to be won on television. To frame reportage of sensitive real-life events as a kind of diverting game-show is crass and unethical.
Unfortunately, such excesses are the logical end of the continuing slide of reportage into entertainment, on both sides of the Atlantic.
But even reality TV proper is sinking to new lows of late. New levels of exploitation and tastelessness are being reached stateside by shows like The Swan and Married By America. In The Swan, a group of "ugly duckling" women are transformed by a team of plastic surgeons into the stuff of beauty pageants. Married By America allows the American public to decide, through their votes, whom the show's star marries. There's even a show in the pipeline where a group of simple-living Amish teenagers are dumped amidst the temptations of Los Angeles, while we voyeuristically look on at their progress.
In essence, reality TV appeals to that part of our nature that likes to look at public executions and pornography, that likes to see the mob gang up and bully, or see the fool put in the stocks.
Why should we be surprised, therefore, that ABC has dragged TV journalism down by making a human being the prize in a competition for our entertainment? The Be My Baby show is merely pandering to our timeless penchant for heartless spectacle.In fact, expect things to get a whole lot worse on television in the years ahead. How long until we do indeed again have public executions? But this time they will be on our television screens. Or how far away is the suicide reality TV show, the show To Abort Or Not To Abort, or Euthanasia Or No? The ghastly possibilities are endless.
While reality TV is unlikely to sink so low in the near future, are some versions of the scenarios just mentioned that improbable?
And if ethical reasons are not enough for moving beyond reality television, then what about aesthetic reasons? The format has got plain boring. That producers are resorting to these new excesses is proof enough of that.
It's time to move on; time to look again for viewing quality. And in television terms it's no secret how quality is achieved: money must be spent. It's time that actors were employed again. It's time that journalists reported and entertainers entertained. It's time to leave reality to the streets and for quality drama to be presented again on our small screens - because despite all reports, fiction is still stranger than "truth".