Reality TV as Sport for the Women in our Lives
Yes, most men like to watch, play, and talk about sports more than most other subjects. There is something manly about knowing more about a particular sport than another man. We don’t need to know more about EVERY sport, just our sport and whatever tragic/heroic story the media is vomiting all over ESPN and other news channels. It is very important to us, and our significant others hate it for that reason and that reason only. Men hear it for watching sports their entire lives…“I don’t get it,” “It’s so (insert derogatory adjective here),” “Why do you say you are watching THE game every night like there is only one?” “All you do is watch sports,” “How long are these games?”
Guess what ladies; it’s time for a little self-examination. Let’s compare our sports watching with your reality TV obsession. There are many similarities. We both watch real people on TV supposedly without a script. We both love some players/characters and hate others. We follow those characters in the news and twitter to see what they are up to. We follow some so much we feel like we know them. Women call each other on the phone to talk about the trashiness of one girl and the sweetness of another. Women love to hate the contestants on “America’s Next Top Model” just as much as they love to cry happy tears for the peoples’ lives that are changed on “Biggest Loser” and “Extreme Makeover.” They check out all the dudes on “The Bachelorette” and pick who they like the best while critiquing the way the bachelorette chooses her men and how she dresses while choosing. “The Bachelor” is a whole other story. The bachelor starts out as this heroic heart throb and usually turns into a crazy jerk when news stories start to come out while the show airs. And checking out the female characters fighting for him takes girl-talk to its peak. Some girls are so incredibly lovable that you want to cry when she is ultimately sent home for the hottest girl on the show who inevitably wins everytime despite the fact that she “Isn’t there for the right reasons (love).” While other girls strike such a nerve all you can say is, “No wonder she is single.”
The next similarity between sports and reality TV is that they both run for seasons. They are usually on one night a week (and don’t say sports are so much longer when “American Idol” and “The Bachelor” series (Bachelor/Bachelorette/Bachelorpad) run multiple shows some weeks with airtime over two hours for a certain number of weeks until emphatically coming to an end beginning a short hiatus until the next season begins.
Lastly, the unfortunate similarity of the lockout two of men’s most watched sports (NBA and NFL) are faced with is not a feeling unknown to women around the country. Writer’s strike aside, women know what it feels like to lose their favorite viewing hobby. While it was entertaining and fun to watch the stars of “Jon & Kate Plus 8” publicly make terrible decisions and become drastically better looking (at least one of them did), that reality show stopped and now you are left with a boring show only involving Kate. Even worse, when “Laguna Beach” ended at least you had “The Hills” and shortly after it was joined by “The City.” Now they are all off the air and all you have is some less than entertaining books by L.C. and sporadic reality TV cameo’s by Speidi. It’s just not the same when they leave, but there is always a new reality TV idea on the horizon so be patient and always remember, “If you build it, they will come.”
So ladies I hope next time you want to complain to your man about watching/yelling/crying about sports you will stop and think about last night’s episode of whatever you watched and go call one of your friends.
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