Those are big questions being debated by big thinkers all over the world, with no obvious answers in sight. So consider this story from France as just another bit of data for this great debate.
Things seem to be coming apart in the former French colony of Algeria, still an area of vital concern for France, as ethnic Berbers in the Kabylia region mount massive demonstration against the Arab-dominated government in Algiers.
So what are the French all talking about? The main subject is Loft Story, ``reality television'' with a French twist that has registered massive ratings in the month it has been on the air. It's bigger in France than Survivor ever was in the United States.
Borrowing from a similar Dutch series called Big Brother, France's M6 network launched Loft Story a month ago when a dozen twenty-somethings were locked in a loft apartment. Since, their every move has been captured by a zillion cameras, to be telecast to the world -- except for intimate moments, available on the Internet.
Each week, someone is kicked off the loft by the votes of fellow participants and viewers. At the end, one couple will survive and, show producers hope, will have fallen in love, or at least in lust. They will be the happy winners of a ``dream home'' -- if they stay together for a certain length of time.
RATINGS GO UP
On the basis of that preposterous premise and plenty of voyeurism, sex appeal and intrigue, Loft Story has rocketed to the top, capturing the lion's share of the most coveted demographic sectors of the French population: young people aged 15-24, ``soccer moms'' and high-income households. The dwellers of the loft have become instant celebrities, appearing on the cover of top magazines such as Paris Match, which have seen sales surge every time.
Daniel Schneidermann, the television critic for the Paris daily Le Monde, has written that the participants' real motive is neither the house nor the hope of finding a soul mate but the desire ``to be known quickly, no matter how, no matter what means, but to be known.''
The networks' motive in putting on trash television, which has spread like a virus worldwide, is pure profit: These programs are relatively cheap to make and capture huge audiences and advertising revenues.
Some Americans no doubt will delight at the thought that the Loft Story craze punctures French pretensions. And, some of the French may take solace in the fact that Loft Story features a romantic plot line, while Survivor mirrors the characteristically American raw, individualistic, dog-eat-dog, struggle for the big bucks.
But perhaps the fact that the nation that produced Voltaire and existentialism now is enthralled with the worst that television has to offer should not be cause for celebration or consolation. Maybe we should take it as a lagging indicator, a late wake-up call telling us how little time there is to turn off our sets and act before the world becomes a borderless cultural wasteland.
maxcastro@miami.edu
Copyright 2001 Miami Herald
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