Arianna Huffington: “..Is Undercover Boss the Most Subversive Show on Television?..”
“..Is reality TV finally living up to its name?
Most of what we are served up under that rubric is actually the farthest thing from reality.
The exploits of Snooki, Jake the Bachelor, and all those Real Housewives hardly reflect life as most of America knows it and lives it.
The real America is hurting — not jetting off to an exotic location for Fantasy Suite canoodling.
But no matter how sobering the statistics we are getting on a regular basis (and I’ll offer up some bracing ones in a moment), ..
.. the hardships and suffering tens of millions of Americans are experiencing are almost entirely absent from our popular culture.
Which is a shame, because drama and narrative have the ability to move people’s perceptions in a way that raw numbers never can.
Enter Undercover Boss, the new CBS reality show in which corporate CEOs don disguises and spend a few days experiencing what it’s like to be a low-level worker at their companies.
Watching the show — including the episode in which the CEO of a waste management company vacuumed out port-a-potties ..
.. and learned that one of his employees, a woman who drives a garbage truck, has to urinate in a cup ..
.. because her productivity requirements leave her no time for a bathroom break — I thought of Benjamin Disraeli.
Before becoming Prime Minister of England, Disraeli wanted to issue a wake up call about the horrible state of the British working class.
So, in 1845, he wrote a novel, Sybil, which warned of the danger of England disintegrating into “two nations between whom there is no sympathy, as if they were inhabitants of different planets.”
The book became a sensation .. and the outrage it provoked propelled fundamental social reforms.
In the 19th century, one of the most effective ways to convey the quiet desperation of the working class to a wide audience was via a realistic novel.
In 2010, it’s through reality TV.
And Undercover Boss has clearly touched a nerve with viewers.
Last week, only the Olympics and American Idol scored higher in the ratings.
It’s the kind of popular entertainment that can start out as one thing — a fun, high concept reality show —
– but morph into something that affects the zeitgeist .. by turning a spotlight on just how out of touch America’s corporate chiefs are.
And their cluelessness is not just about the jobs their workers do — it’s about the lives their workers lead.
Ever since Roseanne went off the air, network TV has not been the most welcoming place when it comes to telling the stories of working class Americans.
But now, week in and week out, millions can see what downsizing and Wall Street’s demands for ever-greater productivity and earning margins did to the lives of so many Americans, even before the economic crisis.
The chasm between America’s haves and have-nots has reached Grand Canyon-esque proportions.
Thirty years ago top executives at S&P 500 companies made an average of 30 times what their workers did —
– now they make 300 times what their workers make.
That’s the kind of statistic a show like Undercover Boss can put flesh and blood on.
Here are a few others:..”
go to source/story>>Arianna Huffington: Is Undercover Boss the Most Subversive Show on Television?