How Reality TV Is Teaching Us to Accept the American Police State

Guest Post by John W. Whitehead

“Plays, farces, spectacles, gladiators, strange beasts, medals, pictures, and other such opiates, these were for ancient peoples the bait toward slavery, the price of their liberty, the instruments of tyranny. By these practices and enticements the ancient dictators so successfully lulled their subjects under the yoke, that the stupefied peoples, fascinated by the pastimes and vain pleasures flashed before their eyes, learned subservience as naively, but not so creditably, as little children learn to read by looking at bright picture books.”Etienne de La Boétie, “The Discourse on Voluntary Servitude: How Do Tyrants Secure Cooperation?” (1548)

Americans love their reality TV shows—the drama, the insults, the bullying, the callousness, the damaged relationships delivered through the lens of a surveillance camera—and there’s no shortage of such dehumanizing spectacles to be found on or off screen, whether it’s Cops, Real Housewives or the heavy-handed tactics of police officers who break down doors first and ask questions later.

Where things get tricky is when we start to lose our grasp on what is real vs. unreal and what is an entertainment spectacle that distracts us vs. a real-life drama that impacts us.

For example, do we tune into Bruce Jenner’s gender transformation as it unfolds on reality TV, follow the sniping over Navy sharpshooter Chris Kyle’s approach to war and killing, or chart the progress of the Keystone oil pipeline as it makes it work through Congress? Do we debate the merits of Katy Perry’s Superbowl XLIX halftime performance, or speculate on which politicians will face off in the 2016 presidential election?

Here’s a hint: it’s all spectacle.

Studies suggest that the more reality TV people watch—and I would posit that it’s all reality TV—the more difficult it becomes to distinguish between what is real and what is carefully crafted farce. Unfortunately, Americans have a voracious appetite for TV entertainment. On average, Americans spend five hours a day watching television. By the time we reach age 65, we’re watching more than 50 hours of television a week, and that number increases as we get older. And reality TV programming consistently captures the largest percentage of TV watchers every season by an almost 2-1 ratio.

As journalist Scott Collins notes, “reality is a cheap way to fill prime time.”

Yet it’s more than just economics at play. As I make clear in my book A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, we’re being subjected to a masterful sociological experiment in how to dumb down and desensitize a population.

This doesn’t bode well for a citizenry able to sift through masterfully-produced propaganda in order to think critically about the issues of the day. Then again, it can be hard to distinguish between the two. As cognitive scientist Steven Pinker points out, the hallmark of well-told fiction is that the audience can’t tell the difference.

Concerning reality TV, journalist Chris Weller explains:

Producers have become so good at their job of constructing a cohesive narrative, one that imitates life – albeit, dramatically so – that the narrative ends up compelling life to imitate it. This is an important distinction…. drama doesn’t emerge accidentally. It’s intentional. But not everyone knows that.

Reality TV is fiction sold as nonfiction, to an audience that likes to believe both are possible simultaneously in life,” continues Weller. “It’s entertainment, in the same way Cirque du Soleil enchants and The Hunger Games enthralls. But what are we to make of unreal realness? And what does it make of its viewers? Do they…mimic the medium? Do they become shallow, volatile, mean?”

The answer is yes, they do mimic the medium.

Studies suggest that those who watch reality shows tend to view what they see as the “norm.” Thus, those who watch shows characterized by lying, aggression and meanness not only come to see such behavior as acceptable but find it entertaining.

It’s a phenomenon called “humilitainment,” a term coined by media scholars Brad Waite and Sara Booker to refer to the tendency for viewers to take pleasure in someone else’s humiliation, suffering and pain. It largely explains not only why American TV watchers are so fixated on reality TV programming but how American citizens, largely insulated from what is really happening in the world around them by layers of technology, entertainment, and other distractions, are being programmed to accept the brutality, surveillance and dehumanizing treatment of the American police state as things happening to other people.

This is what happens when an entire nation, unable to distinguish between what is real and unreal and increasingly inclined to accept as normal the tactics being played out before them in hi-def, not only ceases to be outraged by the treatment being meted out to their fellow citizens but takes joy in it.

Unfortunately, for the majority of Americans who spend their waking, leisure hours transfixed in front of the television or watching programming on their digital devices, the American police state itself has become reality TV programming—a form of programming that keeps us distracted, entertained, occasionally a little bit outraged but overall largely uninvolved, content to remain in the viewer’s seat.

In fact, we don’t even have to change the channel when the subject matter becomes too monotonous. That’s taken care of for us by the programmers (the corporate media and the police state). Before we got too worked up over government surveillance, they changed the channels on us and switched us over to militarized police. Before our outrage could be transformed into action, they changed the channel once again. Next up: ISIS beheadings, plane crashes, terrorist shootings and politicians lip-synching to a teleprompter.

In this way, televised events of recent years—the Ferguson shooting and riots, the choke-hold of Eric Garner, the Boston Marathon manhunt and city-wide lockdown, etc.—became reality TV programming choices on a different channel.

The more that is beamed at us, the more inclined we are to settle back in our comfy recliners and become passive viewers rather than active participants as unsettling, frightening events unfold. Reality and fiction merge as everything around us becomes entertainment fodder. This holds true whether we’re watching American Idol, American Sniper or America’s Newsroom.

With every SWAT team raid, police shooting and terrorist attack—real or staged, we’re being systematically desensitized and acclimated to the trappings of the police state. This is borne out by numerous studies indicating that the more violence we watch on television—whether real or fictional—the less outraged we will be by similar acts of real-life aggression.

For instance, tasers were sold to the American public as a way to decrease the use of deadly force by police, reduce the overall number of use-of-force incidents, and limit the number of people seriously injured. Instead, we’ve witnessed an increase in the use of force by police and a desensitizing of the public to police violence. As Professor Victor E. Kappeler points out, “no one riots because the police stunned-gunned a drunk for non-compliance or because a cop pepper-sprayed a group of protesters.”

Indeed, notes Kappeler:

Police officers possessing less-than-lethal weapons are often more inclined to use these weapons in situations where they would not have been legally justified in using traditional weapons, or for that matter any level of force at whatsoever. This phenomenon is known as net widening. As use of force technologies improve, police become more likely to apply force in a greater number of situations, in less serious situations, to more vulnerable people and resort to force in cases where people simply do not immediately comply with their directives.

What we’re witnessing is net widening of the police state and, incredibly, it’s taking place while the citizenry watches.

Viewed through the lens of “reality” TV programming, the NSA and other government surveillance has become a done deal. Militarized police are growing more militant by the day. And you can rest assured that police-worn body cameras, being hailed by police and activists alike as a sure-fire fix for police abuses, will only add to this net widening.

Ironically, whether we like it or not, these cameras—directed at us—will turn “we the people” into the stars of our own reality shows. As Kelefa Sanneh, writing for the New Yorker, points out, “Cops,” the longest-running reality show of all which has “viewers ride with police officers as they drive around, in search of perpetrators… makes it easy to think of a video camera as a weapon, there to keep the peace and to discipline violators.”

Ultimately, that’s what this is all about: the reality shows, the drama, the entertainment spectacles, the surveillance are all intended to keep us in line, using all the weapons available to the powers-that-be. It’s the modern-day equivalent of bread and circuses.

As for the sleepwalking masses convinced that all of the bad things happening in the police state—the police shootings, the police beatings, the raids, the roadside strip searches—are happening to other people, eventually, the things happening to other people will start happening to us and our loved ones.

When that painful reality sinks in, it will hit with the force of a SWAT team crashing through your door, a taser being aimed at your stomach, and a gun pointed at your head. And there will be no channel to change, no reality to alter, no manufactured farce to hide behind.

By that time, however, it will be too late to do anything more than submit.

Professor Neil Postman saw this eventuality coming. “There are two ways by which the spirit of a culture may be shriveled,” he predicted. “In the first—the Orwellian—culture becomes a prison. In the second—the Huxleyan—culture becomes a burlesque.” Postman concludes:

No one needs to be reminded that our world is now marred by many prison-cultures…. it makes little difference if our wardens are inspired by right- or left-wing ideologies. The gates of the prison are equally impenetrable, surveillance equally rigorous, icon-worship pervasive…. Big Brother does not watch us, by his choice. We watch him, by ours…. When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public conversation becomes a form of baby-talk, when, in short, a people become an audience, and their public business a vaudeville act, then a nation finds itself at risk; culture-death is a clear possibility.

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Simon Jester
Simon Jester

Amusing ourselves to death indeed… “Nothing to see here, keep taking your soma, move along now…”

Bea Lever
Bea Lever

I would argue that there is no REAL reality tv. All so called reality tv is scripted the same as any other television. If you don’t get that, I have a bridge to sell you located in NYC.

Does it condition the sheep to think in certain ways?????? Well yeah.

Stucky

It’s called television programming. Ummm, may I emphasize the second word? PROGRAMMING.

And, it’s not “what” is being programmed, but WHO …. and that would be YOU. And the sheeple eat it up.

It’s not just “reality” programming. It’s virtually all programming.

Of the hundreds of cop dramas that have polluted the air waves the last 50 years, has there EVER been one that showed them for what they are? Or, do ALL of them paint copfuks as benevolent heroes who protect our lives at great sacrifice? You know the answer.

“Cops” is bad enough, but the regular drama show I hate the most is Criminal Intent ….. especially that fat-ass saggy-titted skank ho, Garcia …. who apparently with just two clicks on her computer can assess what time of day you took your last shit, and how many sheets of toilet paper you used. What’s the message here you are being programmed with? That you can’t hide from the government, ever, and you better be afraid motherfucker.

The subliminal message behind TV programming is always ‘honor, obey, and fear’.

Who pays (and, therefore controls) for all this shit? Big Business. Who are the industry’s power brokers? Joos. So none of this shit should surprise the more informed amongst us.

dilligaf

Stucky says – “Of the hundreds of cop dramas that have polluted the air waves the last 50 years, has there EVER been one that showed them for what they are?”

The Shield.

…and a great show btw.

Stucky

dilligaf

Never saw it, or even heard of it. Maybe I need to get out more.

OK … that’s one show. Excellent!

dilligaf

The Shield is an American drama television series starring Michael Chiklis that premiered on March 12, 2002, on FX, in the United States, and concluded on November 25, 2008, after seven seasons. Known for its portrayal of corrupt police officers, it was originally advertised as Rampart in reference to the true life Rampart Division police scandal, on which the show’s Strike Team was loosely based.

Stucky

comment image?w=522

dilligaf

That pic is a little outdated… scratch off ebola and insert measles.

DRUD
DRUD

Sometimes I think the fairest way out of this mess would be a sudden, catastrophic grid collapse, caused by CME, EMP, Cyberwarfare, or just Cascading collapse. Sure, it would be devastating and the loss of life would be huge, but it would also be quick and cathartic. Overnight we would all have to deal with real problems, those in power would lose it instantly (you cannot rule a nationwide/global empire w/o mass media) and it would definitely separate the wheat from the chaff. It’s a bit cold and cruel, but better in my mind than a slow, grinding painful descent into hell, and certainly better than nuclear war (which we may all be headed towards).

Westcoaster
Westcoaster

What gets me is the “formatting” of the “ensemble cast” cop shows. Note how they all take their turn to say their piece and NEVER talk over one another. Amazing realism!

Rise Up
Rise Up

@dilligaf says: That pic is a little outdated… scratch off ebola and insert measles.

Not so fast, Dilligaf. Ebola is still a problem in Guinea:

” LATEST NEWS
4 February: Data posted by the French Embassy in Conakry reveals a newly affected prefecture with 2 confirmed cases in Tougue and a recurrence of activity in Siguiri. Telimele and Kankan have passed 21 days without a confirmed case.

3 February: In the latest World Health Organization situation summary report, 16 new cases and seven new deaths were reported in Guinea.

2 February: In the latest World Health Organization situation summary report, 39 new cases and 24 new deaths were reported in Guinea.

30 January: In the latest World Health Organization situation summary data from 29 January, two confirmed cases and one new death was reported in Guinea.

https://www.internationalsos.com/ebola/index.cfm?content_id=395&language_id=ENG

Rise Up
Rise Up

@DRUD says: “Sometimes I think the fairest way out of this mess would be a sudden, catastrophic grid collapse, caused by CME, EMP, Cyberwarfare, or just Cascading collapse. Sure, it would be devastating and the loss of life would be huge, but it would also be quick and cathartic.”

Agree 1,000%. Only a clean slate will rid us of the tyranny. Of course, tyranny may reign in the period just after such an event(s), but with some luck, a better society/government would emerge.

Bea Lever
Bea Lever

@Rise Up

I think TBP community would make great leadership after said slate cleaning, except Sensetti who still believes in Repugnants and Democraps.

Rise Up
Rise Up

@Bea, you are right! There could be a place for Sensetti if both repubs and democraps are banned.

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