Why Ya Gotsta Be So Nasty… On TV?

In the wake of any reality show, contestants come forward to proclaim that the bad behavior we saw wasn’t the “real” them and that the editors snipped here and cut there to make them look bad.

“Anyone who knows me knows that’s not what I’m really like,” they will say.

Ladies and gentlemen, meet BIG BROTHER’s Lydia. And more importantly, meet her in unedited, live-feed footage from earlier this week. (Please be warned that the clip is uncensored and definitely not safe for work!)

NOTE: Embedding has been disabled on this, so click here.

Now, it’s only fair to say that Lydia is not the first person to have gotten into screaming matches with her fellow housemates this season, and this fight may not even be the worst. (That “honor” might well go to the Chima/Russel smackdown from several weeks back.)

But it’s stunning to me that people who know that they are not only on television (where they can point the finger at editors) but also on 24-hour live feeds, where their every action is studied and critiqued by fans with too much time on their hands, would allow themselves to be seen in this light.

Chima call Russell a “terrorist”. Several of the houseguests were heard dropping the f-bomb of gay slurs. Even Ronnie, who at first came off as the quiet, nerdy type, morphed into the mouse that roared (and lied) as time went on.

 CBS actually does seem to edit things in such a way that people do not come across as they actually are, and, ironically, the houseguests TVselves are sanitized as opposed to being dragged through the mud. In other words: If you shake your head at what you see on screen three times a week, trust me when I say a quick trip to youtube or the live feeds will leave your jaw hitting the floor.

Part of the problem, of course, lies in the fact that just like all other aspects of television, reality shows have become more and more reliant on combustible personalities. Strategy and game play are no longer enough. Just as hockey fans want to see blood on the ice, reality shows now most provide viewers with catfights and explosive confrontations. Thus, you get casts such as this season’s group of BIG BROTHER housemates who are, generally speaking, a mostly unlikeable lot with the possible exception of Jordan.

But hey, the networks are a business and they give us what we want to see… right?