Real TV

Reality/game show contestants are a lot like animals being led to a slaughter.

They are all real and they each have individual personalities, but they have been cast or have been bred to serve a purpose, and it is not pretty to watch at times.

People who volunteer themselves to be belittled on public display, who perform silly tasks to get the attention of viewers, are a lot like that flock of chickens you had when you were younger. And your mother or father told you not to get emotionally attached to them because some day soon they were all going to be killed and eaten for your enjoyment. Even though your parent told you this, you got emotionally attached anyway.

You started to name them and find out where they were from and what they did for a living. You picked out a favorite and started rooting for him/her throughout the contest. And you watched them sing their little songs or play their little games. You would watch them scurry around for little pellets of food. They looked so innocent. But you've been told and so in the back of your mind it is ingrained that you are going to have to bury/eat them.

Each week they get more pellets of food and are sent around to perform more pointless tasks for your enjoyment, each week getting fatter and fatter. And each week you come back and one of them is missing. You look through the bunch to see who it was, hoping it wasn't your Robert or your Christina. She has the most beautiful eyes, after all, and a personality and charisma that you just couldn't help but fall in love with, and you don't want to see her get sent to the chopping block.

Sooner or later, though, the day comes when your favorite gets selected, and you scream out, "Daddy, no! I loved him/her!"

All things must come to an end, though. Some creatures must die so that other creatures may live. The producers, directors, and executives of television are living off of these people's failure and embarrassment.

The contestants are all in the game. Maybe they knew what they signed up for and maybe they didn't. Maybe they are willing and maybe they're not. But they are all lining up to get their heads cut off.

Is it right? Is it ethical?

It's just survival.

And who knows? Maybe they'll win a great big prize, be the Christmas dinner, or maybe they'll go on to a great career in the afterlife, in singing, or acting, or writing. Maybe they'll be a game show host themselves. It could happen.

But those are the games we play, the things we do. What we do to get by is all addressed in reality TV.

Thanks be to God.