Imagine for a moment your house has 35 remote-controlled cameras strategically placed throughout. Sitting in a booth somewhere are producers and editors who, after recording every moment of your life for three months, carefully piece it together to make what they hope will be entertaining television.
Nobody in their right mind would agree to this would they? Well one family did. Tonight (Thursday, November 24) on SBS One we see the first of the eight-part series which according to the publicity blurb will
Document the life of an ordinary Australian family, the Cardamones. After 25 years of marriage, Angelo and Josephine have learnt to find common ground on contentious issues.
I try to picture our family in that situation and well, it’s not pretty.
We struggle to put on our “good” face when we sometimes have visitors over, trying to maintain that for three months? Absolute madness.
There would have to be some rules.
- No nude runs from bedroom to dryer to get clothes you are wearing that day.
- No using the clothes dryer – you don’t want people to know how environmentally unfriendly you are.
- No gossiping about friends, acquaintances, work colleagues, bosses, relatives.
- Someone has to clean the house up EVERY DAY.
- No yelling at each other. (Yeah right).
I’m getting tired just thinking about it.
Last night I looked around our house and considered what the cameras would be filming. I was blogging on the computer, youngest daughter was in the lounge room with the Ipad, eldest daughter was in her room listening to music, husband was working back late. Scintillating stuff eh?
Also, given the length of time this couple have been together I am amazed they have “learnt to find common ground on contentious issues”, husband and I have been together 20 years and we still can’t agree on who’s taking out the garbage.
Similarly, after 25 years do they even need to speak? Just one look is usually enough to let the other half know you are seriously unimpressed with their behaviour.
I also believe their two Nonnas get involved at one point – now if my mother is going to take part we would have to have a whole other list of rules!
Apparently there were a lot of families keen to have their 15 minutes of fame but got knocked back on background checks and psychological assessments. (So no risk we would have got through, our natural insanity would have had us culled in the first round).
Good luck to Josie, Angelo, David (20), Stefan (18) and Adrian (14) I hope the end result is not too embarrassing for them.
Lol I’m with you! I second everything you said!! Sharing this 🙂
Many thanks.
LOL this is going to be a very interesting show.
With all the reality TV here in the states I am trying to think if we have a similar show but I can’t think of one. There are many about “celebrity” families but not about regular families. Maybe that just means I’m blissfully ignorant about reality TV
It’s interesting it is different to the celebrity reality tv shows where you watch to see what they are like “behind the scenes” and who usually have lives far removed from our own. This is people living ordinary lives – mum’s folding the washing for goodness sake! They also had cameras in the bedroom OMG – that means I’d have to add to the rule list – no hanky panky for three months! It made me feel validated that my life is not unique – they argued over how to make the bed – there was yelling between kids/parents – and dad did wander around in his underwear – but I’m not sure it will stand up to another seven episodes of watching people just like us.