MTV is keeping you down

I had a whole list of things that I was going to do tonight -- I was going to write a folk song (a la Bob Dylan -- I guess that damn movie got to me after all), I was going to read Love in the Time of Cholera (I've been stuck on page 123 for a few days now). I was going to publish a sweet blog post about Al Gore and do my laundry because I'm out of underwear. Instead, I fell asleep on the couch during the Patriots-Eagles game, and spent an hour when I woke up watching the latest episode of MTV's A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila. Suddenly, it was 12:30 and I'd wasted yet another night.

For the uninitiated, A Shot at Love is MTV's latest entry into the already overcrowded world of reality dating shows. Its star, Tila Tequila, is famous primarily for having been one of the first celebrity-hopefuls to take advantage of social networking (she was the most popular woman on MySpace, once upon a time) and not much else. Though she originally fancied herself a "musical artist," she doesn't seem to have many discernible talents beyond taking her clothes off (which she's admittedly pretty good at). The show's hook is that Tila is bisexual, a fact that she "revealed" in the first episode, to the "shock" and "dismay" of all involved, namely the 16 straight guys and 16 gay ladies that had signed up to vie for her love. They all live in a single house and sleep (not very well, I would imagine) in a single, giant bed and compete in challenges to win private dates with Tila (this week, they had to transfer as much chocolate as they could from a kiddie pool to a bucket using only their swimwear -- classy.) Hilarity ensues.

Basically, A Shot at Love is television at its absolute worst -- entertainment so mindless that the producers don't even bother to write scripts because the stars probably wouldn't be able to read them anyway. It is everything that is wrong with America rolled up into a neat little package, complete with giant breasts and plenty of girl-on-girl action. And, oh yeah, it is painfully watchable. Like its forebears, The Real World, Next and VH1's Flavor of Love, it is the kind of show that you can just sit and stare at without being bothered by pesky "thoughts" or "ideas." And, in all fairness, sometimes -- in moderation -- that isn't such a bad thing.

But, when the show ended tonight and its tractor-beam grasp on my mind was broken, I couldn't help wondering if these shows will someday be the artifacts that define our generation. Unlike the Baby Boomers, who took to the streets when they saw the injustices of segregation and the Vietnam War, we have been eminently complacent with a world that grows less and less livable everyday. Between global warming, the War in Iraq and the covert theft of our civil rights, we have plenty to protest. So why don't we? I can't help thinking that it might have something to do with shows like A Shot at Love.

MTV, of course, is owned by Viacom, which is a big, faceless corporation. Does it bother anyone else that these shows are aimed directly at the demographic that, in the past, has often been the most vocal advocate for change? I'm not saying it's a conspiracy, necessarily -- our parents watch their own mindless crap, like Survivor and Big Brother -- I'm just saying that we should be wary. Intentional or not, it's fairly obvious to me that shows like A Shot at Love are a major distraction for a generation that should be up in arms and isn't.

I would be a hypocrite if I ran around telling people to kill their TVs, and I'm not looking to start any marches. I enjoy Tila and her antics, and I'll probably waste the same hour next week that I've wasted every week since the show premiered. But, with the world in the sorry state that it is, and a golden opportunity to affect change in next year's presidential election, it's time that we start weening ourselves off of reality shows and start getting in touch with reality. Those folk songs aren't going to write themselves.