PEN-L message, Reality TV and the SSA of Monopoly Capitalism

It is set in a jungle with more deadly flora and fawna than any extreme jungle on any of the "Survivor" shows. It has more narcissistic and self-absorbed "hardbodies" than anything on the "Bachelor", the "Bachelorette" or "Are You Hot?" It has plots, twists and "reveals" more twisted and humiliating than anything on "Joe Millionaire" or "Meet My Folks". It has more intrigue, humiliation, Social Darwinism, dog-eat-dog competition, Machiavellianism and rat-race individualism than anything on "The Real World", "Who Wants to Marry My Dad" or "Average Joe". It has stunts and participants are forced to eat shit more extreme and disgusting than anything on "Fear Factor". It has more megalomania, hubris, narcissism, viciousness, manipulation, superficiality, voyeurism, Machiavellian intrigue and predatory behavior than anything on "Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire", "Survivor" or any of the other "Reality" [of capitalism] shows on the air. It has more predatory, toadying and disgusting yuppy pukes than "L.A. Law" or "Ally McBeal". The "it" to which I am referring is "The Apprentice" which focuses on, in addition to the narcissism, superficiality, megalomania, sexism, racism, possessions, wealth, predatory behavior, hubris, callousness, and empire of Trump, going through various stunts and intrigues to find someone to run one of Trumps businesses as a president making $250,000 per year plus perks; it is billed as the ultimate job interview. It features eight men and eight women, initially formed into men versus women, to perform certain business-related stunts.

First they were formed into two teams of women versus men with their first exercise being selling lemonade (it is up to them by the glass, the case of by the truck load) with the winning team getting to see some of the inside and disgusting trappings of wealth of Trump and the loser team going to the boardroom where one of them gets fired by Trump (who appears to really enjoy doing it). Each team selects a project manager, different eacfh week, and if the team loses, the project goes to the boardroom and the project manager selects two--supposedly most responsible for the failure--to accompany him or her. In the boardroom they turn on each other, ratting each other out, trying not to be the one selected to "go down to the street instead of up to the suite" [in Trump Towers]. Other assignments have included: form a marketing plan to sell credit cards for travel in executive jets, fixing up an apartment and renting it out, selling art to art buyers at a gallary, selling "Trump Ice" (bottled water), selling rickshaw rides/advertising in NYC etc. Supposedly each assignment focuses on some aspect of business: marketing, sales, deal making, etc.

Trump, along with his bad toupe, is in his glory and obviously has no idea--or care--how shallow, narcissistic, megalomaniacal, egomaniacal and really not very bright that he reveals himself to be. Throught this show we get these homilies of Trump: "It's not personal, only business."; "You cannot sell what you do not believe in", "No excuses", "It is genes that determine greatness" (being from the same stock of a rich father, it is supposedly the genes and not the inherited wealth that makes "suckcess" in business).

I have no doubt that the emergence and dominance of this genre--called "Reality TV" is an integral and calculated part of the changing SSA and SSA requirements of monopoly capitalism and imperialism. A new article entitled "Voting Democracy off the Island: Reality TV and the Republican Ethos" by Francise Prose, in Harper's Magazine, March 2004 is along these lines but does not refer to or utilize the SSA concept; it is nonetheless worth reading.