Voyeurism

We now live in a time where looking into everyone's lives and seeing how people react to real life situations constitutes good television. It all started with the Survivor series where sixteen people coming from different walks of life and disciplines are tossed into a remote, uninhabited place, made to face different situations and scenarios, in the hope that the other fifteen people would get the boot, and the ultimate survivor wins a million dollars. With the tremendous success of this franchise, different versions have sprung up, from the creative like The Amazing Race and American Idol, to the really stupid like Gotti and The Swan, and everything in between. We now have local versions of The Big Brother House and American (Philippine) Idol. All of these shows have one drawing factor - to see how people react to real-life situations, and in some cases, tragedies and stress-inducing scenarios. In other words, people love to see people fail more than they want to see people succeed. Bad news sells more papers than good news.

 We are all guilty of this. We slow down when we see vehicular accidents, especially if they involve deaths on the road. We rubber-neck to turtle-like proportions to see a corpse on the road, a driver pinned by a crushed vehicle, a motorcycle under a truck. A survey was once conducted among those who love to watch motor racing that one of the main reasons they come to watch a race is because they're actually hopeful of witnessing a big car crash. When a skydiver jumps off a plane, we toy with the idea that his chute would not open, and we get it on film! Everyone remembers the Erap plunder trial on tv. Everyone was glued to see if they would witness the impeachment of a President. Unprecedented during its time. Bad news about any sort of  celebrity, even after only fifteen minutes of fame, is worth knowing about or watching on the news. Personal accomplishments are so easily overshadowed by failures of any sort. Al Pacino couldn't have said it better. "You need me so all of you can point and say, 'There's the bad guy'." Which is why reality tv continues to thrive, as there always seems to be a villain ala Simon Cowell in every kind of reality show.

 Actually, reality shows have been around for decades. Back then they were known as documentaries. Here there are no paid actors, paid hosts, audience participation or big cash prizes. Just the truth. The nitty, gritty truth. Nothing is directed except the editing, and when people triumph and fail, you know it is the real deal. It is too bad these are not given enough attention, except at the Academy Awards.

 There really is that voyeur in all of us. Our fascination with anything that seems to be none of our business is unbelievable as it is insatiable. Which is why while condemning the filming of that procedure done on a patient in Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center, we stuck to the story like flies on waste.