The American Culture Program

at Randolph College

Reality TV in 2005?  By Dan Stiffler

I probably sneered when a colleague suggested reality TV as a theme for the 2005 American Culture Program.  Study reality TV?  I don’t even want to watch it!  Survivors and Joe Millionaires—who needs them?  Why would real people want to claim fifteen minutes of fame by eating exotic bugs or seducing wealthy cowboys?  But then my colleague mentioned “American Idol” and our whole approach changed.

Not that I have ever seen “American Idol,” but I could think of a few historic ones—Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt, Lincoln—whose busts are carved on a mountain in South Dakota.  Founding fathers: big-time idols.  And Mount Rushmore?  Well, it is a tourist destination for Americans looking to spend idle time.  And vacationing in the Black Hills?  Well, surely that could be an idyll.

Few things in academia are more dangerous than punning professors, but we were on a roll.  Fallingwater became a primary road-trip destination.  Designed by America’s most idolized architect, Frank Lloyd Wright, Fallingwater was a retreat for idle times built over a waterfall along idyllic Bear Run.  The owner of the house, Edgar Kaufmann, helped revolutionize the way Americans spend time shopping.  Even in our day and age of big-box-marts paving over pastoral landscapes, Kaufmann’s department store stands tall in downtown Pittsburgh.

Every spring semester, the American Culture Program offers its students new ways to study and to see America.  This year, our controlling theme will be “American Idols,” inspired by the current popularity of reality TV shows.  Yes, we will spend a segment examining that cultural phenomenon, which in fact traces back to good old “Candid Camera.”  Indeed, the 2005 American Culture Program students will be producing their own reality video.  You can look for its premiere this spring.  In the meantime, however, please don’t ask me to watch “Insect Gourmet” or “Becky Billionaire”!