Reality TV? I Don't Think So

Viewers of the hit show Desperate Housewives who live in areas prone to tornadoes have been critical of Sunday's episode that featured a tornado hitting Wisteria Lane. They said that the behavior depicted on the show was more in line with an expected hurricane (for which residents generally have lots of notice) than a tornado (which usually strike with just moments' notice, and no one knows in advance where they will hit until that funnel cloud forms).

I think they're right. I didn't grow up in Tornado Alley, but in the concrete jungle of New York. Still, I thought it amusing that characters were making all these preparations, planning to "wait out the storm" in their cellars, were stockpiling water, and - I must have missed this, but several people said they saw it - putting masking tape on their windows. I also thought it odd that objects as heavy as cars were lifted and slammed down on the ground while people standing nearby weren't as much as knocked down.

Defenders of the show say, "It's just TV." Well, people get a lot of their ideas and beliefs from what they see on television. A tornado is a very serious situation, capable of bringing death and destruction to anyone or anything in its path. I do believe that TV shows have a responsibility to try to paint a realistic picture of life-and-death situations. People get blown away or hit by heavy falling objects in tornadoes. While heavy rain from hurricanes can last for days, tornadoes are over in minutes, and taping windows is pointless against this kind of wind.

I've seen plenty of misrepresented situations on TV. An episode of the excellent and now defunct Lifetime series Any Day Now had a would-be author learn at the last minute that she'd signed with a vanity press . . . and she had an attorney representing her interests. Completely off the wall (unless the attorney was a complete charlatan who didn't even attend law school), but not particularly upsetting. No one's life depended on it. But God forbid some fool learns a funnel cloud is headed their way and thinks they have time to run to the store and get a supply of water or to go outside and tape their windows because of what they saw on TV.