We consider reality to be the real, non-fictitious and non-fantastical side of life. The one in which we live. The one which we are so disappointed with constantly. In my opinion, part of the reason why people watch and read fiction is because they are searching for something more exciting than their own lives. Television writers have become attuned to this reaction to life and are constantly working on ways to make "reality TV" be popular with this in mind.
Reality TV isn't actually real most of the time. If we followed people around their everyday lives, we'd see that although there are sparks of interest, there are also many extremely dull moments. So, in reality TV, scenes are constructed to look exciting and interesting and drama is created to keep the audiences begging for more. Although a lot of the scenes don't have specific scripts to follow or words to say, it's still not completely real because the writers want it to hold the attention of the audience. This has been called different things such as "Scripted Reality" and "Unscripted Drama" (Mark Burnett, creator of Survivor, 2003.)
There are specific techniques that are used to create reality TV without a full-blown script. Here are a few we heard about in class:
- take scenes from what they've shot and cut and paste it into a different chronological order than how they really happened to create more drama.
- putting voice overs from the cast on top of a scene to make it have a completely different undertone than what it may have been in reality.
Hill (2005) says "the treatment of 'reality' in reality programming has changed as the genre has developed over the past decade." With this, reality TV has also managed to warp our perception of reality along with it's development. In the beginning, in the beginning, law and emergency type shows were created, probably because that was the most interesting reality at the time, however these days, we follow anything and everything: teenagers at high school (My Life As Liz), people competing for a prize (Wipeout, Survivor, etc.) and even people are who specifically dumb and specifically Italian/American (Jersey Shore). These days, we think that it's realistic for these people to act this stupid and do these things because that is what reality TV has scripted for us.
As the question says, it is how reality TV writers have constructed our concept of reality through a visual level, when in reality, Snooki gets paid $100,000... Per episode! I highly doubt that people get paid that much for living their lives. Oh and a free trip to Italy, not to mention an awesome palazzo with free drinks and automatic entrance at all of the best clubs. I'd sure act like a dumb blonde if it meant I got all of that!
Despite this however, reality TV is still super popular even though we know that there is no way that it is real. I personally love Jersey Shore and can't wait to travel to Italy and see that awesome club that has flames all along the back wall!
References
Hill, A. (2005) The reality genre. In A. Hill, Reality TV: Audiences and Popular Factual Television. (pp. 14 – 40). Oxon: Routledge.
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/11/12/1068329621438.html - 'Surviving and Thriving' - Mark Burnett.
Oops, forgot to put this in!
ReplyDeleteThere is also the fact that people act differently in front of a camera. If they are meant to be in some kind of situation, they tend to exaggerate their qualities in order to fit the role and scene. Most of the time, this is done subconsciously.
Great response
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