If you take a spin around your television dial, it is unlikely that you will go more than about three channels before you come across what is called a reality television show. For those of you who do not know what a reality television show is, I have really missed you since you left our planet. As these shows are so abundant on our televisions, there are actually genres of reality TV. There are actually more genres than you might think such as multiple birth families and aging rapper dating/sexual misconduct just to name a few. Today I would like to talk about the occupational reality television show genre.
There are dozens of reality shows that feature a person or people doing a particular job. Some are very good, like The Deadliest Catch, which deals with the very dangerous occupation of fishing in Arctic waters for crab, and some are Cupcake Wars. There are bounty hunters, exterminators, pawn shop owners, dog whisperers, horse whisperers, and ghost whisperers. It has come to my attention that there is now a show on The Food Network called "Ice Brigade" about the occupation of ice sculpting in Michigan. Really?
I want to say right off the bat that I have nothing against ice sculpting or ice sculptors. That stuff is magical. That scene in "Edward Scissorhands" when he is carving ice with his scissor hands and making it snow on Winona Ryder teleports me to a place where nothing bad will ever happen. But in the instances where I have seen an ice sculpture or had the sheer delight of witnessing one being created I have never been curious about how the artist gets along with their spouse or kids. I have never once interrupted a carving of a giant frozen trout to ask the artist to tell me about a day when things got so crazy back at the ice sculpting office that they had to say, "Hey gang, lets all just take a little time out and get it together."
Who was asking for this show? Does the average person even know that these things are sculpted by a person and not just pulled out of some old lady's freezer and extracted from an enormous bear-shaped ice cube tray? Another thing that bothers me about Ice Brigade is that it features a self-described group of ice sculpting renegades. Are there renegades in the ice sculpting community? Apparently the answer is yes. I'm not really sure what you would do to be labeled a renegade. As far as I can tell there are two requirements to be an ice sculptor: use ice and make it look like something. I think if you go against either of these conventions, ice sculptor should not be what is printed on your business card.
I'm not really fired up because there is a show about ice sculpting. I am concerned because I see no end in sight for these types of shows. Each one gets just a little bit less interesting. Finally we will be left watching a show about the hustle and bustle in the high stakes world of insurance adjusters (at least what they are allowed to show on TV).
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