Courtesy of
Washington Post:
About the only reality show that looks real to the people who live here is “Deadliest Catch,” which has picked up 10 Emmys in nine seasons. Most of the rest do a spectacular job misrepresenting the state and the people who call it home. Some, like “Ultimate Survival Alaska,” are fake, fake, fake. Others, such as “Wild West Alaska,” make us look like deranged misfits. And then there is “Alaska Moose Men,” which would be better if it were about creatures who are half-human, half-moose, as its title suggests.
Into this mix comes MTV’s planned reality series “Slednecks.” Segments being screened for advertisers are reported to feature snow-machine riders (snowmobile riders, for you in the Lower 48) crashing, arguing and jumping into a frozen lake through a hole in the ice. There will no doubt be plenty of backwoods beer-drinking, bear-fearing and beard-sporting, too, for people who haven’t gotten enough from the other Alaska shows.
Whatever reality “Slednecks” depicts, it will probably have little to do with how most Alaskans live. Alaska isn’t as wild and crazy as seen on TV.
The average Alaskan is more at home in or near civilization than in the wild, though you wouldn’t know it from watching “Life Below Zero.’’ That’s the show in which Sue Aikens lives “all alone’’ at the Kavik River Camp — except for the film crew, the Internet connection and the many visitors who drop in to go hunting, fishing or hiking. She’s a rarity.
More than half of Alaska’s 730,000 residents live in Anchorage or just north in suburbs known as the Valley. (Former governor and Wasilla mayor Sarah Palin grew up a Valley girl.) Add in the people of Fairbanks and Juneau, the capital, and you’ve captured two-thirds of the state population.
I don't think that columnist Craig Medred is suggesting that we don't have some wild and wooly folks, because we most certainly do. And the farther outside of Anchorage and Fairbanks you go, the woolier they get.
However though Alaska itself is a place of great beauty and dangerous extremes, the people here are essentially like everywhere else in the world. Albeit with prominently displayed nipples most of the year.
My daughter recently returned from visiting a friend in Florida, and her mother in Georgia and proudly told me that the most often asked question is no longer about Sarah Palin. Now it is "Does everybody in Alaska have their own reality show?"
And you know some days it seems that they do.
However as my daughter, who works in the industry, points out over, and over, and over again, NOTHING on a reality show is real. NOTHING.
And that includes that iconic photo at the top.
I now have a pretty good idea of what went on that day, and not only did Palin NOT shoot that caribou, but the caribou was not even actually wild.
In fact Medred describes a similar scenario for another reality show:
When “Wild West Alaska” went on a wild elk hunt, the stars scrambled into a floatplane at Lake Hood in Anchorage and made a short hop across Cook Inlet — to a place where the only elk are at the farm where the hunt was staged.
In other words the animal that they shot for the show was raised on a farm, cared for by the owners as if it were a pet, and then slaughtered on camera for the viewing pleasure of idiots who think that they are looking at life in Alaska.
I already knew about this, just like I know about the similar circumstances surrounding
Palin's infamous caribou kill.
No, Alaska is an amazing place, with colorful characters. But the people who appear on television are playing a character in order to attract viewers and increase ratings.
And that goes for a certain half term quitter, who may have been playing a reality show character her entire life.
