Culturally Preconditioned

I’ve seen some ridiculous reality shows on television, but I’m not sure if anything’s gonna beat this. I’ve read this some time ago, but it totally slipped my mind until I saw the paper advertisement in The Star today. You know, they initially had plans for a reality show to choose the nation’s first Astronaut? What was the show supposed to be called again.. Angkawasan Malaysia or summat? Anyway, I don’t know who knocked some senses into these people, but they’ve decided to scratch the show.  Well this new show probably will rank up the same on the stupidity barometer.

Get this.. Akademi al-Quran : The reality show in search for the best Qari and Qariah in Quran recital.

You know, I don’t have anything against finding the best Qari and Qariah, but to turn it into a reality show? Big mistake. Boy, people seriously need to stop coming up with these fucking lame concepts. They think turning everything into a reality show will be a quick cash cow for them, but what they’re actually doing is really destroying the reality show genre.

The true concept of reality shows, in my opinion, is to bring out the ugly side of people - the drama. That’s what makes it so interesting. It’s true. If there’s no drama, it’s merely a competition. That’s why I thought the concept of Malaysia’s Most Beautiful is the most ironic and most stupid concept for a tv show if there ever was. There is NOTHING beautiful about a reality show. Nothing. If you’re trying to find the outer beauty, well there’s already all these pageants and shits, but what they were going for was to find outer and inner beauty. Inner beauty my ass. They are all guilty of media whoring themselves on tv in the first place, so there is nothing humble or beautiful about that.

But back to Akademi Al-Quran. Don’t they already have tahfiz competitions all year round? Is that not enough? Why must you scutinize these talented people and go into their personal lives and turn it into a fricking reality show? Why? Viewers will not be judging them based on their talents as a Qari or Qariah, but since it is a reality show, they will also judge on a more personal basis. Why put these people through this?

I know many television viewers have been commenting that the tv stations keep coming up with the same lame concept of finding the best singer, best entertainer and whatnots, but  I tell you, this is just plain ridiculous. I can see this thing being very pretentious, taking a religious concept and using the ugly reality show vehicle to fulfil their selfish marketing agenda. Fuck this.

I know it’s unfair for me to judge the show before actually seeing it, but if you understand the concept of reality television, you’ll probably understand why this is a really really bad idea. For all I know, I could be totally wrong about this, but I’m not gonna stay around to even give it a chance so it’s unlikely I will change my mind on this topic.

And that is my rant for the day. Thank you. *steps off podium*