Eleven years after The Real World introduced the idea of reality TV, the form has come to dominate television. Most of these shows, The Real World included, consist of contrived scenarios that have become sordid at best. Fear Factor and Survivor, for example, are goal-oriented; the cast members are pitted against one another in sometimes nasty competitions for money. But even the pioneer Real World, whose purpose is to capture real life as it unfolds, imposes tasks and obstacles for its casts to overcome. By manipulating “real” lives, these shows cheat the viewer out of true voyeuristic pleasure.
Finally, though, MTV has given us something to watch. The Osbournes has no set, no cast and no pretense. The show is a stripped-down look into the cuddly, eccentric, private life of the King of Bad Ass, Ozzy Osbourne. It comes as an after-thought spin-off of a Cribs episode, which invaded Ozzy’s messed-up world and found something endearing about it. Ultimately, behind our preconception of this bird-biting, larger-than-life antichrist, we find a loving father, a caring husband and, what’s more, his quirky, loveable family.
The opening credits expose tid-bits of Ozzy’s home life through animated frames reminiscent of the ‘50s TV sitcom. The blatant irony, of course, is that on the surface Ozzy’s family represents the quintessential dysfunctional family whose crudeness alone would turn Beaver over in his TV grave. A few weeks ago, Ozzy brings his pink-haired daughter on the radio with him. Before they go on air, she catches herself mid-”fuck,” stops and giggles, “Oh, I have to behave myself.” In another episode, policemen reprimand the family for tossing meat and wood over the fence at the hated neighbors. This week, Ozzy gets heated about his children smoking weed?now that’s irony.
The misfit Osbournes are the real-life Simpsons. Both families are hyper-color exaggerations of the nuclear family gone awry. And paradoxically, both return full-circle from their superficial dysfunction to the point where we adore them for their strength as a family unit. Behind the tattoos, the Mohawks and dye jobs, the doorknocker in the shape of a devil’s head, the incessant “fuckin’” this and “bloody” that, and the plethora of peeing dogs, the Osbournes are perhaps the most functional family on American TV. And this is the real kick in the ass because, sorry guys, they’re British.
At the end of the day, Ozzy really is father knows best. He has made his mistakes, tattooed himself silly, and probably experimented a bit. Now, sitting back drinking diet coke, he is devoted to raising his three kids, urging them away from tattoos, alcohol and drugs, and trying not to step in dog piss.
Their signature Englishness, which allows them to be as outrageous as they are, also makes them more refreshing. In the sea of homogenous American TV, the Osbournes’ undeniably British humor transcends all that’s mundane as well as most of the wit and the sass of our best (Sorry, Sex and the City fans). Not even a fictional American family could achieve the spunk of this foreign one, whose frantic arguing, cursing and running after dogs are cause enough for guffaw. Part of this comedic success is owed also to the show’s directors, who are wise enough to step back and let the minutia of home life be the essence of the entertainment.
This is not to say that the show is relegated to the Osbournes’ home. In fact, Ozzy and his daughter make an introduction on MTV’s Total Request Live. We’re engrossed in the private lives of a public family. We become so involved in their perspective, we lose our own. Then, the acknowledgement of ourselves as an outside viewer hits. If not also a self-promotion by MTV, this clip is a slap in the face by reality. And such a postmodern overlap of scope is what reality television was meant to be.
The Osbournes is breathing new life into a hackneyed form. Perhaps only a family as whacked out as this one would agree to have their lives taped, and not in the I’m-going-to-move-to-a-new-city-and-get-famous-on-TV kind of taped, but really just taped as they are. This, my voyeurs, is the real thing.
