There's this new trend called reality programming (okay it's not that new), and something about it struck me as odd. Television is now a surrogate parent for when we're too grown up to live with our real parents, and it's judging us.

Look at the "Fab Five" on Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. What's the first thing they do when they arrive at someone's house? They criticize the same way your mother did when she visited your dorm room in college, and then they go out and buy you furniture, the same way your mother did when you got your first apartment. They also dress you for your date, the same way your mother did for the prom.

Look at the trio judging America on American Idol. I saw one or two episodes of this show and a lot of commercials for it. The main attraction seems to be Simon and the various ways he can tell you, "You're aweful," a message we seem to enjoy being told over and over again.

Then there's The Bachelor and shows like that. I admit to watching the 2nd season of The Bachelor, the one with the guy whose family owned a vineyard, but even more enjoyable to me was For Love or Money. That show was truly evil, and I enjoyed every minute of it. I saw the last episode of the second Joe Millionaire, and you really do have to wonder whether the cowboy's European beauty chose him for him, or because she heard about the prize money.

I think Joe Average is the epitome of this particular brand of reality TV - people who don't measure up being judged by someone immensely better than they are, as anyone on the show can and will tell you... repeatedly, even when you're not watching it and just see commercials for it. "Do they stand a chance?"

What's even more disturbing is the implication that your future happiness - whether you get the dream life, be it in business, music, "zhuzh," or romance - depends on what someone else thinks of you.

I watched The Restaurant faithfully because I really enjoyed seeing someone pursue their dreams, that's a rare thing to see in this world. It was fascinating to see the drama that went on, the problems that came up and how they were handled. I think this is one example of a show that's actually approaching wholesome. At the end of the show, our protagonist, Rocco, got his restaurant not by being judged, but by tackling every obstacle in his way. His staff was another story.

The Apprentice, on the other hand, is completely rediculous. I'm going to guess that the people in the show are by and large fairly mature and intelligent people. When watching it and participating in disussions about it everyone commented on just how immature everyone acted, but I suspect most of the people commenting wouldn't have done much better.

I don't care how mature you pretend to be, if I take you and put you in a frat house and tell you that each week you can be fired, I suspect I'm going to see some very immature behaviour because when we're in over our heads, we tend to fall back into the behaviours of our childhood. Also, when we're in a group like that, and it's gauranteed one of is is getting kicked off, a television crew is following us around so America can judge us, well, I don't think calm and rational is really easily obtainable.

During the show, what strikes me is that Donald is the parental figure, and what's really going on under the surface is that everyone is vying for his attention, as if they were siblings vying for the approval of their parents. Donald's advisors are like aunts and uncles who you go to to show how great you are in hopes that they'll tell Donald what a good boy or girl you've been.

What happens every episode is Daddy Trump tells his children what he expects them to do and gives a seemingly arbitrary measure of success - money earned/saved, and in one episode, a presumably impartial third party. He then comes back to find out how you did.

This is sort of like when your father says "When I get back from work, I expect to see your room clean / your homework done, etc." What happens then is a competition amongst the siblings to see who will be his favorite, who will get the good grades, and who will be sent to their room without dessert.

I never saw Survivor or Big Brother, but I imagine it's largely the same. I think I saw in one commercial for the show that "Unity" was taken away from one team for the first time ever, whatever that means. This means that there is one person serving as judge, telling them what they can or cannot do - "Don't throw mudballs at the neighbor's house," and generally acting as parent, even though they (I think) vote each other off.

Universally on these shows what happens if you don't win the approval of whoever it is - your teammates, the boss, the bachelor, the judges - is you're sent home. Your punishment is that you have to return to your life as it was. Your reward is that your life is transformed.

Time and again as a musician I made the analogy of getting a record contract being like winning the lottery and getting surrogate parents. Ask any musician who wants to get a record contract why they're pursuing that record contract rather than making music in local clubs for their friends, and they'll tell you that they want to make music for a wider audience, or they want to be able to quit their day job.

The truth of the matter is, getting a record contract is like winning the lottery - your life changes overnight (or so you believe). What they're really looking for is a surrogate parent (the record company) that will take care of them and pay their bills so that they can play (literally and figuratively) all day.

I doubt television programming in other countries is that much better, though I am convinced that America is the superpower it is because of it's ability to control the thoughts of it's population. More than any other country, we spend money on learning how to market and sell products. There's a study I just read about that shows pictures of various products while the test subject is getting a CAT scan to see what areas of the brain are stimulated by various images. Extremely Orwellian, and while this will largely benefit big business, this project is being funded by the government.

The overwhelming message on TV today (and probably since the dawn of time this message has been transmitted in various ways) is that your life, as it is, is bad. It's boring, it's typical, it's drab, it doesn't "zhuzh," whoever your dating isn't your soul mate, and your job sucks. Oh, and by the way you can't sing, so give up on making your own music, and consume ours, we're the experts anyway.

My guess is, we enjoy and accept this kind of message because it's the same message our parents instilled in us, and it reaffirms our basic assumptions about life. That the top 2% control everything, including our destiny. That there's nothing that we can do to improve our situation, and that we're constantly being judged and always falling short.

In fact, I'd bet that last message is the most important, as it's the lynchpin the others seem to rest on. You're a bad little boy or girl and you'll never amount to anything. All media seems to do is add "and buy this product" to the end of that sentance, and we fall for it every time.

Let's face it, if we buy in to the myth that Simon can change your life - lift you up out of medocrity, out of the mess of the sandbox and dirty diapers you've been living in, that Carson can and should tell you how to dress, what chance do we have against the commercials that tell us the same thing in between "you're the worst singer I've ever heard," "your fashion sense is aweful," "you're fired," and not getting a rose.

I mean, the guy who drives that car on the empty highway in that commercial really looks happy, and I'm not happy (because reality TV tells me so), so I should buy that car and it's almost like getting approval from Simon, which is the next best thing to getting the approval of my parents.

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