Unshockable Society

George F. Will is well known for his conservative commentary and for his writings in the Washington Post as well as an analyst for ABC News. As one of the most prominent writers today George F. Will wrote “Reality Television: Oxymoron,” an essay about society losing their sense of principles and becoming more coarse. Will focuses on the idea that present day television viewers are drooling for more “violence, sexuality, and degradation” creating a mass market of idiocy (295).
George F. Will initiates his essay with a line that radio performer Fred Allen once said: “Imitation is the sincerest form of television” (293). Will supports the observation by providing us with an example of Fear Factor, which is an imitation show that got its idea from an MTV show, Jackass. Both Fear Factor and Jackass are among the international shows where   participants impose acts of violence upon themselves while degrading themselves in front of millions of viewers. Will’s next example, the XFL football league not only promised to display more violence but more nudity as well. After a season, people began losing interest since “graphic violence and sexual puerilities are quotidian television” (294).   Television is a battle where competitors try to grab the attention of viewers by thinking lower by providing extra violence and nudity: “the race to the bottom will not rest, and the bottom is not yet in sight” (294). Overall reality television “is the supply of despicably greedy or spectacularly stupid people” who feel the need to mortify themselves to viewers in order to feel famous or just for the chance to earn some cash (294).
Will demonstrates that in this era adults and children are becoming less distinguishable in the way they entertain themselves and with “the kinds of entertainments they are absorbed in” as a progress that has become a “more sophisticated delivery of stupidity” (294). Entertainers are obligated to pleasure this “unshockable society” by “ratcheting up the...