I'm sure you guys have all heard of the Gladiators who used to fight to the death for the entertainment of the Romans. People look back on this and think "that's barbaric! Barbaric, I tell you", and I agree, it is. But how long do you think it's going to be before we have our own modern-day Gladiators appearing on our TV screens?
I recently read The Running Man by Richard Bachman (Stephen King's former alias) which is set in the not-too-distant future. The world (or at least the United States) is divided in to two halves - the rich and the poor, to put it simply. The people living in the poor areas are as poor as poor can get, and the rich are rich. There is no middle ground.
One of the only ways the poor people have of making money is to appear on reality television shows for the entertainment of the better-off citizens. The only difference between the reality shows of today and the ones in The Running Man is that the stakes are alot higher... one example is a show in which people with bad heart conditions have to run on a treadmill for as long as possible; the longer they survive the more money they earn, until they eventually have a stroke or heart attack or such. The most popular and most dangerous reality gameshow in The Running Man is the show that the book is named after. The Running Man (the show) is a game where a small number of contestants have to run, literally. They are given a head start and they have to just run as far away from the studio as possible, and then are chased by a team of highly trained mercenaries. If the mercenaries find them they kill them. If they don't find them after a certain amount of time the contestants win big $$. And throughout the whole thing people are having the action broadcast in to their homes all the time so that they can sit and enjoy.
This might seem really far fetched, and maybe it is, but I don't think we're as distant from that as we think. People, for whatever reason, seem to enjoy reality televisions shows - Big Brother, anyone? - and we all know that people like to see people being hurt - boxing, wrestling, Ogrish.com, horror movies, etc - so why not merge the two? What could be better than a reality show where we can actually watch people being hurt or killed, all in the safe confines of our livings rooms?
Discovering Ogrish.com, as you all probably know, has really affected me in some fundamental way. I'm not going to get in to it here, as i'd just be repeating myself, but Ogrish.com is the most extreme type of voyeurism I have heard of. People come up with excuses for watching that kind of stuff, but personally I feel that you would not watch anything like that unless you enjoyed it - I don't do stuff that I don't enjoy to some extent, and I imagine everybody else is the same. Even the adrenaline rush you get from being horrified is a type of enjoyment, and essentially a type of pleasure. Finding out that people can watch a man having his head hacked off or a woman being gang raped and murdered (or suicides, torture and executions, etc) has upset me more than I thought possible, and I don't know why, really. So i'm gonna get off that subject, or at least get back on to what I was saying.
The fact that sites like Ogrish.com exist suggests that a large number of people get some kind of gratification or pleasure out of seeing the pain and suffering of others. The fact that shows like Big Brother exist suggest that a large number of people get enjoyment or pleasure out of watching real people in real situations, all while sitting in their living room behind a locked door. As I said earlier, I honestly don't think it will be long before there is some kind of amalgamation of the two, and we'll be seeing reality shows in which people are put in life threatening situations for our entertainment... and i'm sure the majority of people will be rooting for them to lose.
I hope I don't live long enough to see things progress that far, though.
(I originally had alot more to say, alot more points to try and make, but I feel my words would be 'falling on deaf ears', so to speak. And I should really try and get this shit out of my head, it's done nothing but upset me.)
