Staged reality

You'd have to be really naive at this point to believe that many of Bravo's reality shows are in any documentary sense "real."

Even so, it's interesting to find evidence of just how staged some of these programs are. The light, comedic "Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List" (10 tonight, Bravo) seems especially rigged and pre-planned this season as Griffin just happens to get invitations from and meet up with other celebs, from Bette Midler to Paris Hilton. Gone are the days of simply following Griffin around to tour dates and in her supposedly real life. Now the whole show feels plotted. Even the sub-plots -- last week's Griffin's cute elderly mother was tasked with operating her daughter's Facebook page -- come off as calculated and nearly scripted.

But don't take my word for it. Even the participants are talking. A model named Tyler Bachtel was in last week's episode when Griffin and Hilton chatted poolside. The camera lingered on him long enough to make his presence seem anything but accidental. So it was no shock when Hilton just happened to ask him to take her picture with Griffin. Sure enough, Bachtel even blogged about filming the scene and it's clear he was a plant intended to be part of a staged scene:

They started placing people into different locations by the pool. Lucky for us, they placed us directly behind where Kathy and Paris were sitting. While filming, Paris turned to me and said in her baby voice, "Hey handsome! Can you come over and take a picture of us?" SWEET! Naturally, I agreed and walked over, talked to them for a bit and took a picture of her and Kathy on her phone. After, the film crew came back to take close ups of us. It was nice to have had the opportunity to talk and plug my name on Kathy's show.

Look, it's not that I expect reality shows to be real. But there was a time that they at least felt semi-natural. With calculation so obvious, the show's seams are showing and it's a distraction.