How Michaele Salahi Is Like Nancy Pelosi

Photograph of Michaele Salahi and Joe Biden via Michaele Salahi's Facebook Page

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In a country where people have been eating cockroaches to get on reality TV for nearly a decade, Americans seem nonetheless appalled at the fame-seeking antics of Michaele and Tareq Salahi, the couple who crashed the White House state dinner last Tuesday. Part of the outrage is because the Salahis revealed a security breach that could have put the president in danger. But the majority of the disgust is because of the Salahis’ profound sense of undeserved entitlement. Why do they get to take goofy candid photos with heads of state when, as a Washington Post commenter put it, “Tareq is just a spoiled brat who lives off his parents, and Michaele came from nothing, and fell for the glamour of this useless bum!!”

The premise here is that reality TV is full of crass fame-hounds, failed models, and actors looking for a cheap career boost. For the likes of them to rub shoulders with the dignified statesman of Washington is just appalling! But, in fact, the gap between the roach-eater and the dignified statesman has been closing for some time. Since the genre’s rise to popularity in the early aughts, being on reality TV has gone from a stigma to a sort of virtue. Respected magazine editors from Elle and Rolling Stone helm their own shows, and Top Chef contestants are James Beard contenders. At the same time, politicians are taking their cues from reality TV, revealing more of their inner lives, reporting on their every move in Twitter and Facebook feeds. Even Tom DeLay gave in, with his semi-disastrous debut on Dancing With the Stars just this year. Why wouldn’t Michaele Salahi think she deserved to hang out with Nancy Pelosi? After all, Salahi has about 2,000 more Facebook fans than the good speaker.

The difference between the sort of notoriety held by elected officials and by reality television stars has flattened so completely that two former Real World contestants—Sean Duffy from the fifth season of the Real World in Boston and Kevin Powell from the original season in New York—are considering runs for Congress in 2010. These are more than just frivolous attempts at office, like porn star Mary Carey’s bid for California Governor in 2003. Duffy has an uphill battle to winning a seat in Wisconsin’s 7th District, according to Politics Daily, but as a fourth-term district attorney in Ashland County, he is a legitimate candidate. Powell has attempted to unseat incumbent Edolphus Towns unsuccessfully twice before, but he is a well-known writer and activist and enjoys the support of Chris Rock and Gloria Steinem.

When Powell appeared on the first season of the Real World in 1992, it was the only show of its kind and had a kind of earnest indie pride. It attempted to raise awareness about important issues—think of the third season in San Francisco, when Pedro Zamora taught America about AIDS. But being on reality TV was still something to be ashamed of —Dave Eggers was pretty sheepish about almost appearing on that San Fran season (he auditioned but didn’t make the final cut, and wrote about it in A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius). After that, the genre plummeted into a darkness of fame-seeking and vacuity. There were the cockroach-chompers of Fear Factor, the Heenes and their brethren on Wife Swap, and the desperate singletons of The Bachelor and Bachelorette franchises.