Reality television is a powerful way employed by the media to exploit human beings’ insatiable desire to escape their immediate realities and into other people’s lives, experiences or indeed other places. The plethora of such shows that have sprung up over the past few decades are all geared at pushing the extremes of the human curiosity, exploring new cultures, environments and just about any other aspect that the public can pay for. From the glamorous lives of the Kardashians to the impoverished rustic lives of Amazonian tribesmen, reality television shows explore other worlds, different from the mainstream. Unfortunately, however, all forms of knowledge are culturally and historically constructed, which is why is why the specific context is necessary to understand the different aspects. Naturally, it is impossible for reality shows to provide adequate contexts to their content (even if they meant to), which in turn results in the perpetuation of stereotypes. This paper argues that stereotypes serve as a powerful tool used by reality television shows and the media, to engage the interest of the audience, after which the audience’s sense of reality can be manipulated to accept the version of reality that the media presents.
The use of stereotypes as a hook comes through in Porochista Khapour’s account, in which Islamophobia and the post 9/11 anxieties about Islam form the primary motivation behind a reality television show. Khapour’s account offers an excellent perspective through the eyes of a stranger immersed in a foreign culture, which explains the manner in which a foreign culture shown to the mainstream may be received. The same way that she perceived herself as an outsider and gravitated towards depictions of characters that did not belong, is the same way that the mainstream Americans react to the reality shows about unfamiliar cultures, places and people. They tend to categorize them as strange, different and assign stereotypes to them. The “All American Muslim”s choice of characters is specifically tailored to explore cultural aspects that the mainstream Americans would find different, including traditional marriage, Islamic conversion and empowered Islamic women such as Nina.
In the same way that the Bill Cosby Show leveraged stereotypes about Blacks in the United States, this show too seeks to build on the same to get the audience. “For many Americans just a woman in a hijab is a red alert on the freak meter”. The use of stereotypes evidenced in Khapour’s account also comes through in both Shakely (2011) and Madrigal (2014). In Shakely’s account, stereotypes of “leering, big-nosed, buck-toothed redskin” and other negative portrayals of Native American chiefs are commonly employed by sports teams, perhaps to project raw power and sense of identity with the native land. Shakely says in reference to a Native American mascot that“its war-painted and lance-threatening mascot Chief Osceola is intended to be menacing, and that is the take-away many children will have” (Shakely 521).
It is clear that these stereotypes serve the role of engaging the interest/attention due to the subconscious conceptions about a certain phenomenon, into which an enterprise supplants its own message or brand. These three case also point to the quality of reality television shows that renders stereotypes projected through them impossible to detect. In the same way that buying a redskin baseball caps as well as consuming the symbolisms about the Native American culture, it is extremely difficult to know just how far one has bought into the stereotypes.
It is impossible to the ignore the fact that the exposure afforded by reality shows into other cultures, people’s lives as well as own lives as perhaps best evidenced by Alexis Madrigal’s self-realization about the depictions of dads on television and questioning whether such depictions are genuine. Similarly, Khapour admits towards the end of her article that the “ All American Muslim” and her past exposure to stereotypes challenged her own instincts. “ Maybe that stranger-than-fiction dream my kiddie self and my adult writer self would never have indulged could happen: for once, maybe the freaks took off their masks, and people liked what they saw” (Khapour 525). Similarly, Madrigal concedes that the idiot father stereotype ay embody the expectations that mothers have of their children’s fathers, and the role in which fathers see themselves playing at home. It is not doubtable that these stereotypes have foundations in the traditional gender role definitions and the past decades when women were in the main, housewives. This hardly the case in many American households today, but the media would not the stereotype go because it is used to start conversations, to draw interest and drive up ratings.
The media provide a powerful way in creating and subsequently manipulating the audience’s sense of reality, not least because much of the media’s influences on the audience occur unconsciously. It is clear in the articles included above that stereotypes have value to the media, and especially the reality television shows because it serves to engage the viewer’s interest. A reality show about any other American family, tradition, culture or even community is hardly to attract any audience at all. It is that hunger after celebrity’s lives, native Americans, exotic communities in the Amazon or Chinese maths whiz kids that engage the audience’s imagination. Effectively, despite the fact that reality television shows perpetuate stereotypes, such stereotypes are not accidental. They form the very core of the business model that drives this industry, and thus it is unlikely that they would stop.
Works Cited
Khapour, P. (2010, Nov 10). Reality TV Goes Where Football Meets the Hijab. Retrieved Oct 26, 2014
Madrigal, A. (2014, JUne 29). Dads on Sitcoms. Retrieved Oct 27, 2014
Shakely, J. (2011, Aug 25). Indian mascots — you're out. Retrieved OCt 27, 2014
