Strauss: TV viewers crave palpable ‘realism’

Many years ago, we might’ve gotten off the school bus and walked into our kitchens to find our moms folding laundry and engrossed in “All My Children.” Many years ago, we might’ve gotten off the school bus and walked into our kitchens to find our moms folding laundry and engrossed in “All My Children.” Today’s first graders, however, are more likely to find their mothers riveted by a “Basketball Wives” rerun. America seems to have a true-story complex.

We’re not as interested in the juicy drama between Leo and Greenlee on “All My Children” now that we can watch the Kardashian sisters go to the grocery store. We like to watch “real” people talk about “real” issues on talk shows and love to watch “real” people live their “real” lives on reality shows. The problem with this is that these shows are not real. They’re realish — which isn’t even a real word.

The Associated Press confirmed what America already knew: Reality and talk shows are cheaper to produce, as plummeting “All My Children” ratings indicate. Why have the ratings taken a plunge? Because we want “true” stories.

This truthiness issue permeates all art, including movies, music and books. Eleven years ago, Dave Eggers published his memoir, “A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius.” He presented it as “lightly” fictionalized, but the book was still a Pulitzer Prize finalist in the general nonfiction category. America tends to accept tampered truths as true.

The beautifully innovative and self-indulgent book describes Eggers’ life at age 21 after both of his parents die, leaving him no choice but to raise his 8-year-old brother. Eggers begins his memoir with an acknowledgement: If you are bothered by the idea of this book being real, you are invited to do “what authors and readers have been doing since the beginning of time: Pretend it’s fiction.” It is true. Nothing is truly fictional. All art is based on truths.

Dave Eggers’ screenplay “Away We Go” could have been a “true story.” In fact, I am fairly certain that there is at least one thirtysomething, unwed pregnant American couple struggling to live a “meaningful” life (the film’s basic plot). If the phrase “true story” had been slapped on the movie’s promo poster, the film probably would have garnered much more popularity. Why? Maureen Murdock explains this well in her book, “Unreliable Truth.” Murdock says that when one experiences someone’s memoir, “a relationship forms between the reader and the author and between the reader and her own life.”

Americans used to turn to art as an escape to see glamorous, outlandish aspects of truth. They wanted to see Susan Lucci portraying vixen Erica Kane as she struggles with marriages, murders and more drama than our lives will ever see. Now, more and more, people turn to art for healing and companionship. When engaging with media, one wants to be assured that his or her time was spent with a “real” person and that the time was used not just for enjoyment but also to provide emotional benefits, like therapy and company. “The greatest healing may come in knowing that from our suffering we have comfort to offer each other and that we are not, in fact, alone,” Murdock writes.

Pitt lecturer Jeff Oaks, who taught an autobiography class here at the university, offers more insight on our obsession with reality. Today, when we want to take a break from our lives with art mediums like TV and books, we are likely to choose a show like “Intervention” or a book like “Eat, Pray, Love.” One breaks from his or her own life by delving into someone else’s. Oaks points out that this reality culture is a model for people to live by, connecting us to our self-help culture. “It is our modern way of talking about our lives,” he said.

We don’t care anymore whether something is truly “real” or not, as long as the artist can pull off the scam. James Frey’s “A Million Little Pieces” is one of the most popular examples of an unsuccessful artistic con.

Unlike Frey’s book, “All My Children” never pretended to be something it wasn’t — it didn’t need to when the soap started in 1970. But now, 41 years later, producers and viewers have a new relationship: Producers know what their viewers want. “The Chew,” which features celebrities like Mario Batali and Clinton Kelly, will replace “All My Children.” This new understanding between producer and viewer, unfortunately for Susan Lucci and the rest of the “Children” cast, makes Batali’s chatter with celebrity friends juicier to viewers than Erica Kane’s 11th marriage could ever be.