Recently I read a Q and A between Macleans.ca and Jennifer Pozner. Pozner is the director of Women in Media & News as well as the author of Reality Bites Back: The Troubling Truth About Guilty Pleasure TV. The Q and A is about Pozner’s take on the so called reality shows on TV and how real they actually are. This Q and A is specifically talking about how ‘women’ are type cast and edited to make them fit the stereotype that the producers of such shows want them to be. Well I think it goes both ways and that men are also type cast and edited to fit certain stereotypes.
The first question asked to Pozner is “Why do you say it’s “bulls—t” that viewer demand has created the deluge of reality TV?” The basis behind this question is that viewer demand is what keeps crappy reality shows on TV. The fact that people want to see women be objectified and watch men act like horny teenagers. I know I don’t want to see crap like that but I’m not everybody so I can’t say that everybody else doesn’t want to watch it either. What I can say is that I can ask almost everyone I know and they will agree with me that these reality shows are just a bunch of crap. And I don’t hangout with a dumb crowd, so how many people could there be that actually want to watch these shows? According to Pozner, viewer demand doesn’t actually decide whether a show stays or goes. The deciding factor is money. Pozner states that, and I quote, “It’s true that some reality shows—American Idol, The Bachelor—have gotten high ratings, but many others languish with paltry ratings and they get to stay [on air] because these shows are really cheap to produce. It can cost about 50 per cent less—sometimes even 75 per cent less—to make a reality show than to make a quality scripted program.” Now I don’t know this to be a fact but Pozner seems to think so and after reading her response I can agree with what she says. I think it is just a bunch of bulls—t that the media says shows stay on because of popular demand. If shows stayed on the air because of viewer demand then such shows like Firefly and Stargate: Universe would still be on the air. These shows deserved to stay because they had a good story line, but a show like Jersey Shore with its drunken arguments, fake tans, and ridiculous music still gets to stay on air? I can’t help but think it is because of the cost.
Another question asked by Macleans.ca was “You argue that we need to readjust our definition of “scripted”.” In short, Pozner says that scripting doesn’t just include giving an actor/actress a piece of paper to memorize but is also involves casting. Pozner mentions how producers try to find people who have actual problems just so they can exploit them for ‘better’ entertainment. Even after the producers find someone they like they then still have to edit them into the perfect stereotype they want. Pozner states, “After casting, they then edit people into stock characters: the dumb bimbo, the catty bitch, the weepy loser who says, “I’m going to die alone if the bachelor doesn’t choose me!”” Another thing that she points out is that “…for every 45 minutes of The Bachelor they [viewers] see, more than 100 hours of film have been shot.” This is the same for every show I can think of. It’s the same for movies also and that’s why some TV series have DVD releases that contain “extra footage” that is “never before seen”. You can’t show everything in just one episode. But what Pozner is getting at leads us into her response to the next question, “You write about “Frankenbites,” the industry term for splicing various conversations together to create a fraudulent new one.” Pozner gives a prime example where, on Joe Millionaire, the producers spliced two different conversations from two different days to give the viewers this scene, “Viewers watched about five minutes of trees in the dark, nothingness. But what you heard were things like, “Do you think it would go better lying down?” And there were captions like “slurp” and “mmm.”“ This would give a certain impression to the viewers of something that didn’t even really happen. I think if you’re going to be in the business of reality TV at least make it real. If the conversation doesn’t fit then just leave it out or better yet leave it in and it makes things seem that much more real because it IS real. Not like ‘frankenbite’ conversations. The only examples of this happening that I know of are what Pozner describes and the worst case she mentioned was about a cast member from The Bachelor. Without going into great detail, basically the producers used the woman’s family problem against her in order to make her cry when she got eliminated. She had told the producers that she didn’t want to cry because she was glad to be going home and that she didn’t even like the guy. She generally regretted agreeing to be on the show in the first place. The producers proceeded to, after making her cry, use their conversation and splice her sentences to make it seem as though she was very sad she was leaving and she regretted not opening up to the bachelor. The fact that people can do this and get away with it because of a contract sickens me. These producers could care less about how these girls actually feel about leaving the show they just want them to make a scene so the viewers have something exciting to see.
A major question that I find interesting is “Reality shows appear to exist in a bubble, completely disconnected from social reality.” My response is similar in effect to what Pozner states. I have noticed that there are a lot of reality type shows on TV that really don’t touch at all on how our economy is doing. Granted they don’t have to stop and mention how the economy is doing but there are a lot of people that are affected by the current depression and Jersey Shore doesn’t seem to show anyone struggling at all. All I have seen on these reality shows is stuck up snobby people having fun and blowing money like its toilet paper. Pozner points out how people in shows like Flip That House and Million Dollar Listing are throwing cash around and essentially telling viewers how to get out and make money by doing the same thing when truthfully that would not be a wise decision people should follow. I think reality shows are cut off from social reality. Another major example is how producers are ignoring the fact that women are advancing in society and have been for many years now. Shows like Wife Swap, according to Pozner, are continually putting women down. An example of this is how the producers are always switching a stay-at-home mom with a mother who has an outside job or an outside career. By doing this and creating frankenbites the producers lead the viewers to believe that stay-at-home moms are right in their place while more independent women won’t survive in the outside world and need to stay home and take care of the children. I mentioned earlier how I believe men are victims to the media as well. One example of this is that fathers are the money earners and if someone is a stay-at-home dad then he is seen as weak. This follows suit with the same stereotype as women. This is what reality shows are trying to depict and that is not the world we live in. There are many families with stay-at-home dads and mothers who have long-term careers. Society has advanced a lot since the 1950’s and women can do a lot more now than they could then, but reality shows keep pushing their crap down our throats.
The final question that asked to Pozner was, “Is reality programming the new reality?” Pozner gives an example of what the future is going to look like if we don’t start criticizing these shows more. She states, “Bridalplasty is about to debut: cosmetic surgery given to brides who compete to get procedures while they plan their wedding. We’ve had Extreme Makeover, The Swan, so what can they do to make it even more disgusting? Oh, let’s merge the wedding-industrial-complex shows with the cosmetic-surgery-is-liberating-for-women shows.” I don’t usually watch any reality TV so this shouldn’t bother me but what does is that my mom watches a lot of reality TV so that scares the hell out of me. I think reality TV is becoming more and more ridiculous by the minute and we need to put a stop to it or else we are going to start living in the 50’s again. What people see on ‘real’-ity TV is what they tend to see in the real world and that is a bad thing because what produces throw out on TV is sometimes nowhere even close to actual reality.
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