Summary Of Voting Democracy Off The Island Reality Television And Republican Ethos

In the articles “Voting Democracy off the Island: Reality Television and Republican Ethos,” and “A Moral Never-Never Land: Identifying with Tony Soprano,” Francine Prose and James Harold analyze television shows and connect them to real life. Prose describes how producers manage to involve ordinary people in real competitions, in which contestants are expected to utilize deceptive methods to win. She argues that since everyday life events are experienced in such shows, reality television watchers’ attitudes as well as their views about life are effected by the actions of the competitions. Also, Prose connects how reality television shows’ characters behave to how real life politicians act. She states that both groups employ dishonest and deceitful

Authors clarify their points of views by noting the connection between the behaviors of the characters in such television shows and the attitudes of people in real life. In her article, “Voting Democracy off the Island: Reality Television and the Republican Ethos,” Francine Prose gives an example of such comparison using contestants from reality television shows. She states that life concepts followed by the competitors such as “the conviction that altruism and compassion are signs of folly and weakness,… the belief that certain circumstances justify secrecy and deception,… are the exact same themes that underlie the rhetoric we have been hearing and continue to hear from Republican Congress and our current administration” (Prose 60). Prose’s choice of that type of television shows to deliver her message is very effective on multiple levels. For example, she accounts for the possibility that a considerable number of her readers might be unaware of the current tensions and conflicts taking place in the field of politics. And so, her choice to analyze reality- based television shows is very appropriate to connect her readers to the current state of political conflicts that reflect the shameful deterioration of moral principles that currently define the American culture, since such shows are more widely watched by people than purely political shows. On second level, Prose’s analogous argument between television shows and the political infrastructure, which distorts moral value in and of itself, is currently observed as a sign of “weakness.” The moral values in these shows have become part of people’s identity. The evidence that Prose gives to show the effect of these shows on people’s morality strikes the reader and allows them to further understand the influence of shows on American