Recount: A Magazine of Contemporary Politics

What I Learned from the 2004 Presidential Election (as it Pertains to Reality Television)

By Elle Govea | Dec 8, 2004 Print

Now that the dust surrounding the presidential election has settled, it’s time for us to get down to some healing. The whole red state-blue state distinction is so 2004. We should just stir up those scary primary colors in this great big melting pot we call America and make us a nice, pretty lavender color. And it’s not even going to take much more than settling a rear end down in a cushiony sofa and adoring the flickering pictures that float so appealingly from the idiot box. It turns out that we know more about each other than we thought, thanks to the miracle that is reality television.

I grew up in a state so blue it’s black, notwithstanding a little Austrian gubernatorial mistake named Ahnold, but it turns out that the reality stars I alternately cheer and jeer (and secretly adore) are what make up those scary red states that I’d just assume stay far away from. For the yee-hawing, gun toting, praise-the-lordin’ red staters, reality television provides the perfect 30-minute dose (practically at 30-minute intervals) of educational infotainment guaranteed to learn them about the heart-bleeding, gay marriaging, pansy-ass liberals. Through reality television, to answer one man’s bloody plea, yes we can all get along. We just need to learn to understand each other.

Lesson 1: The adage that cheaters never win is wrong, wrong, wrong, so wipe it out of your mind. Sure, it’s a nice Pollyanna way to teach children right from wrong and all that, but as the winner of any reality show will tell you, you have to look out for number one, above all else. If you’re a clever competitor on reality television, you will form an alliance, and then systematically disregard every promise you made to your team. String along the members of your partnership, and then screw them at just the right moment. Competitors on television always attempt to form alliances, even among the kindred spirits on Biggest Loser. Richard Hatch won a million bucks because his alliance worked out. And the traitor always excuses himself with the cunning claim, “I have to play the game for myself,” or something equally quaint. Of course, we don’t know for sure yet what President Bush did to win that mandate he keeps claiming, but the whole situation is suspect: missing ballots, phony dates, crazy touch-screen voting machine robots stealing old people’s registration cards. Seriously, it’s a mess, and Bush still gets to eat fried bologna sandwiches and play video games in that big, white house. His team just happens to have ridiculous amounts of money and power—he chose well. Lesson learned.

Lesson 2: Annoying is always better than boring. No one ever remembers the first guy to get kicked off any show. But Omarosa, Puck, the bow-tied Apprentice wannabe Raj, those are what nightmares (and great TV shows) are made of. Okay, now I don’t think I’m alone here when I say that, as much as I wanted him to win the election, John Kerry is pretty boring. Only entirely appropriate cheering at moderately exciting rallies, somewhat subdued thumbs up, non-threatening hunting trips despite the existence of loaded rifles, that kind of thing. And don’t even get me started on the bore-a-thon that was Al Gore’s campaign for presidency. George W., on the other hand, boy-howdy! He’s pure irritation, from start to finish. And like a train wreck, I cannot turn away. Even watching him walk across his big-ass lawn is entertaining. He’s like an officially sanctioned ambassador to Annanicolesmithistan.

Lesson 3: Homosexuals are different, and should be closely monitored, but we can always use their strengths to our benefit. Since the dawn of reality television, there has always been “the gay guy” or “the lesbian gal,” and more often than not, the rest of the group worries when they make any kind of sudden movements. But really, through reality television, the American public has witnessed more of the nuanced world of the ‘mo than they realize. We have learned to pick one out of the crowd, even when he’s trying to hide it (which they tend to do, sly foxes), a la Playing it Straight. We have watched as they turn their all-seeing queer eyes on pathetic straight men with raggedy underpants. And on this season’s Real World Philadelphia, there are actually two gay guys, so we even get to learn how they interact with each other in their natural habitat. And clearly, many Americans have followed the lead of reality television: 11 states have decided that it would be morally outrageous to afford two people in a committed relationship the right to file joint tax returns, just because they happen to own the same, ahem, equipment. But Americans know whom to call when their furniture is outdated or they want to throw a party. Gay people are like the weapons of mass destruction that we never misplaced: we know where they are and what they’re doing at all times.

Lesson 4: Religion trumps all other morals. Take for example, Real World Los Angeles, (aka worst season ever). Sassy black Tammy was left looking like sassy black whore when her decision to abort a pregnancy didn’t sit well with god-fearing, cowboy-hat-wearing, Country-singing John. Whether she was or not, we all got to watch as two people diametrically opposed to one another were forced to live together and not resolve their religious and social differences. Oh man, you couldn’t write a better script! Sound familiar? Apparently, a history of drug abuse, drunk driving, and possibly lower-than-average intelligence doesn’t matter much if you’ve got enough of Christ’s love and pray every day. As long as they can quote the Bible at length, even a person who eats raw kitten meat is a moral giant compared to someone who makes the baby Jesus cry with his heathenism.

Lesson 5: Forcing good ol’ Southern kids and hipster city kids to coexist is both a recipe for disaster and great television, all wrapped into one. On the first Real World New York, sweet and naïve Julie from Alabama assumed New York rapper Heather B. was a drug dealer when her beeper went off in the get-to-know-you session. Reality TV always shows some clueless redneck staring wide-eyed at the avant-guarde liberal while he or she ruminates on the current state of racism or the latest issue of the New Yorker or even Tupac’s newest miracle recording from beyond the grave. Why do those liberal elitist intellectuals gotta be all smart and read all those books all the time? And how can those hayseeds be so ignorant about the real world and eat so much jell-o? This is probably the biggest hurdle to finding common ground, at least politically. But as it turns out, the election solved this puzzle too! The ignorant hayseeds found some power and screwed the snotty intellectuals by electing a man who stands to make the life of the middle-class even worse. They sure showed them, huh?

So, really, all we need to do to unite the country is watch massive amounts of reality television, which is how we’d all probably spend the majority of the next four years anyway. That’s how the kids who were raised to believe that evolution is nothing more than a scientific theory will learn to relate to the ones whose lesbian mama and transgender daddy run a health food store together.

I’m just going to lay low for a while, like the triumphant reality star always does at the beginning of the season, and see which direction the country is headed before picking sides. I studied for this test.

Elle Govea can be reached at .

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