Followers of this blog will already be aware that I have a couple guilty pleasure reality shows categories that I watch: cooking for one, and this season I’ve been following the Glee Project. For those unfamiliar with it, they auditioned young singers with a 7-episode role on Glee next season for the winner. It was on Oxygen, rather than Fox or one of the other major networks, which you could sort of see in some of the editing choices. There was interpersonal drama, but they also highlighted moments of friendship between the contestants, so they came across more like people with good and bad moments, rather than assholes or fame whores. The competition was also structured to be extremely high pressure, but to artificially foster discord and drama between people except in that everyone wants he final prize.
In any case, when watching reality shows, I often wonder if, despite the fact all the contestants claim they want the prize more than life itself, there aren’t as many paths to success after the show as there are in real life. I mean, in my writing career, I never had the sense that if I submitted one story to one editor and was not chosen I’d blown my single chance. Writing’s especially easy to see that with: publishing houses publish a lot of different books, and people read a lot of different books, so one person’s book getting published doesn’t really diminish the chances of my book getting published. There’s room enough for all of us!
I’m going to give away a few spoilers for the end of the current seasons of Masterchef and the Glee Project below, so I’ll jump into a cut, in case anyone cares.
And once you start looking beyond the editing tricks, I think the same can be said of reality shows too. Real reality creeps in. I can name more American Idol second-placers with careers than I can winners. In this season of Masterchef, they all but offered one of the final contenders a job at their restaurants. And I wonder if, having seen them do so well on TV (even if they didn’t win) might not be an employment boon for the others. Even if not, if they worked hard enough to do well in an artificially pressured competition, I bet they’ll work hard enough in the real world.
And I think the ending of Glee Project reflected that real reality. Instead of one winner with a 7-episode arc, they had two winners with a 7-episode, and two with a 2-episode arc. Because they were all good! They had different strengths, and once the producers stepped back from the artificial winning structure, there was a solution for that.
Anyway, that’s a window into my philosophy on life. There’s never a be-all, end-all competition, as long as your definition of winning isn’t invested in one particular title. There might only be one Masterchef per season, and one author with the highest income in the world, but there’s always more chances to be a really kickass chef, or a really kickass writer.
Leave a Reply