Sunday, January 16, 2011

Post Traumatic Sixites-Reality TV Begins

In 2010, reality tv has taken over the networks. But in the sixties, reality tv begins--and it was reality. Watching the news made you duck. It started with the replays of President Kennedy's assassination, then we watched Lee Harvey Oswald get shot. Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King were gunned down, and we watched.

There were riots, church bombings, and civil rights workers killed. The Vietnam war was broadcast regularly, until they had to stop because someone saw their son dead on a stretcher before they were even notified. And into the seventies, there were students killed at Kent State, and the clocktower massacre.

Before this, television was non-threatening entertainment. Women and children never got killed. Actually, I saw the first lady die in an episode of Bonanza. Anyway.

So trying to sell reality television to me is a hard-sell. I have seen the real stuff. And it left the youth of the sixties with a plateful of hard truth.

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