How Real is "Reality TV"?
Nowadays television takes a lot of time because of diversity of programs proposed. One is able to find something according to his demands and preferences. TV gives the audience the views about current matters of the world and news about changes brought to society. One cannot resist the influence television carries, so he falls under the beauty of the staged programs. One of the most popular types of these programs is reality TV, which gives the ability to relax and spend some time watching the lives of actors on screen.
People are not likely to watch programs of not dazzling plot and characters of no individuality. To entertain people with something interesting, the scriptwriters have to think over some innovations and bring them on screen. To do it, reality shows are turned into “not so real” – they are well-staged, every scene is rehearsed a lot of times. The problems of characters, which they have to encounter, are faked and created in order to attract attention of the audience. This method works, and reality shows are very popular on the programs market.
Reality shows have different structures and emphasis on different issues, but the rules to shoot a really interesting program are identical. The producers of shows have to take care about the story: it can differ into followed and planned one. The events planned before shooting provide the program with clear order of the action happened and ensures great interest from the audience. The way the storytelling is presented does not change; in this case the story producers have to think over the background of each story in order to fulfill the missing episodes with interview or interesting background of an event to happen. The scenes of emotional experience are of great value and have to be at call in case of problems with the plot. The life stories that have no decorations or culminations are good because of their pureness, but the editors of realities have to change it and present it to the audience as the challenges the character encounters during his complicated way to happy and successful life.
The cast of each reality show has to be selected thoroughly, as there is no reason to choose the character, which is not artistic and unskillful in the issues of a show. One of the aesthetic barriers to watch TV can be the thought that television is a kind of voyeurism. David Foster Wallace in his essays argues that the urge to watch someone`s life on screen is the manifestation of such an illness. The same is with the cast`s attitude towards their privacy – they let their lives to be observed by many people. The only difference between the true voyeur and “TV goers” is that subjects of shooting are not ignorant about the audience they work for (Wallace 1993, pp. 152-153). They do not care a lot about being watched, as they seek to be on screen. Anyway, the script of each reality show has to be developed by professionals, who regularize what is suitable to be in the show, and what should be excluded from the script. It is compiled according to the place of shooting, mood of the program and the message it has towards the audience. Every peculiarity of the script is caused by characters and location. These ties cannot be broken, if show-makers want to succeed in their artwork.
The majority of the audience for reality shows is the representatives of the working class, who like to relax after working days sitting of sofa and watching the failures of characters on screen (Raine 1995, p. 66). People from the middle class are also engaged in spending their time with TV shows. According to the data below (“CLASS & HOW IT IS REPRESENTED ON TELEVISION” 2013), the people from middle and working class are the majority of the audience – the great “TV goers”. The lower class does not do in for TV programs a lot, as they have no ability to waste their time – as a rule, they prefer to do some useful things instead of taking rest. The smallest part of the pie chart is taken by the representatives of upper class. They are more likely to become the prototype of the characters of reality shows than the ones who watch it. Those people, who are engaged in full-time work or those, who deal with different kinds of business, do not like to spend their time passively. Moreover, they try to avoid it, as they consider it to be the best way to waste time or to have their brains full of unnecessary information. Instead, they try to apply every minute to be closer to the execution of their dreams and aspirations.
Reality TV differs in subjects of the programs. Reality show can be the filmed depiction of the way people from various stratums of society live or the program, where dreams come true. In any case, the plot and the development of events of each reality show are written by scriptwriters, who care about the audience`s needs. For example, American Idol is the show, where one can see the development of a person from ordinary singer to the real star. Of course, this reality show is always rehearsed, but it still greatly entertains spectators. According to the interviews about top 10 reality shows on Time the performances of American Idol are exciting, and the reviews for such a show testify great interest from the side of audience (“Top 10 Reality TV Shows” 2016).
Another popular reality show was The Osbournes, where stories about domestic life of Ozzy Osbourne and his family were told. Unlike most programs, this one was not so staged, as this family did not take care about their privacy and well outlook – they liked to be themselves and pushed away any proposals of pretending to be diligent people. The Osbournes did not hide the truth about the health state of the family members, they tried to live and fight for good along with the audience. The final episode of the show was in March of 2005. This reality entertained audience with its pureness and unhidden facts of life of the Osbournes family. Nowadays most of the shows are staged in order to prevent any accidents and quarrels if being shot from the first take. The show makers are not likely to be responsible for traumas and nervous breakdowns of the participants, so they pay a lot of attention to think through the scenarios.
Reality shows have a great impact on the development of the neoliberalism. This idea is developed in the article by Nick Stevenson, where he examines the changes of people`s perception of TV scenes. He claims that the development of the audience`s outlook and the rising demands to cultural citizenship ad its issues are up to the producers of shows (Stevenson 2010). Reality TV is an inseparable part of people`s pastime, and even despite all the affectedness of the programs, they are still worth watching. They help the spectators to spend time with use and, occasionally, enrich their knowledge with beneficial things. The producers of “Survivor” show some useful techniques of how to live during emergency situations (Schneider 2010). This way, the audience can take a lot of knowledge, which can be implemented in some special situations.
The real side of reality shows can help the audience to analyze their own lives and bring some changes to it by observing the development of relationships between the characters of TV shows. Without taking into account the main purpose of each reality show, which is to entertain the spectators, these programs carry a lot of good passage, as each character changes his habits and is involved in self-development during the program. These changes are the components of happy futurity. Even though all the affectation of the characters` emotions and actions for the time the camera is on, the participants change irreparably, as being under the observation of thousands of people one cannot stay faithful to his aspirations and dreams.
The spectators of reality shows experience a lot of emotions during their watching any program: people feel self-respect and satisfaction when they take a look at the failures made by characters of the realities. They greatly enjoy this kind of TV. The producers` goal is to attract public to their work and they succeed because of the thought-out plots and exciting events that occur in ordinary lives of participants. The programs produced by different companies are all staged, but the passage they carry to the audience is diversified a lot. Kilborn (2003, pp. 87-89) argues about the relevance of reality shows, but he does not deny the impact programs have on audience`s minds. Reality TV is the key to relaxation from routine and regular work. A glimpse of star life make people believe in the possibility to do everything.
Without doubt, realities are interesting and dazzling, but some programs may fall from grace in the eyes of spectators. It may happen because of some reasons: the cast may be selected badly, and the actors may be so unprofessional, that their amateur abilities in acting irritate the audience. In such cases, the reputation of a reality show falls rapidly, and the show is closed by the producers. A great amount of money is wasted and the people`s needs in entertaining are not satisfied enough. To avoid it, show makers try to select the cast and the subject of programs thoroughly.
Anyway, lifestyle television presented by reality shows is the most prevalent sub-genre of Reality TV in different countries (Hill 2005, p.29): in Britain and in the US, where people do not like complicated plot – scenes, where one should think over the actions taken by the actors, are not in favor. This way, the BBC channel is one of the greatest providers of lifestyle television (Holmes, Jermyn 2004, p. 173). The programs on set are liked by millions of people, so show makers have lots of profit. Their work is rewarded by the results of high reviews and popularity of the reality shows shot.
Reality shows are known to be the mirror to the lives of the spectators, where no fantasy or decorations are used. People do not like to think over sitcoms or reality shows – they just like to watch amusing things. The majority of the audiences to watch realities are the representatives of middle and working classes, to whom television is the way to dispel all the problems. Sometimes people even manage to take good advices from the programs and implement them in their lives properly. The television exists in order to please people`s needs and serve as the method to relax. In order not to confuse spectators with raw material – undecorated characters` stories, the producers of reality shows think of the ways to enliven plots of programs. As a rule, the audience pays little attention to the fact that al the process of shooting is staged and well-established by scriptwriters – they care about the result. Even despite all the artificiality of reality shows they are popular and demanded. The audience wants to watch spectacles of no complex questions to discuss.
This way, the key to shoot reality shows of great demand is the understanding of people`s needs and implementing them in life by means of television. The depiction of real human lives attracts spectators as well as the shows, where one is produces as a celebrity or superhero. Sometimes the audience is interested in soul-touching programs, however. The rule to create such successful programs is to touch on vital problems and show the ways of how to solve them. One cannot resist his desires to get some tips of the proper way to manage his business or life at all. To please them, reality shows are created by people, who spend a lot of time writing scripts for humoring people`s aspirations. As a result, both producers of shows and the audience are pleased with reality TV in different ways. People get beautiful pictures and touching stories, while show makers make lots of money on these stories. All the places and benefits are distributed well.
References
“CLASS & HOW IT IS REPRESENTED ON TELEVISION”, 2013. WordPress.com, [online] 11 May. Available at: <https://classrepresentationsitcoms.wordpress.com/2013/05/11/class-how-it-is-represented-on-televisionsocial/> [Accessed May 6, 2016].
Hill, A., 2005. Reality TV: Audiences and popular factual television. London: Routledge.
Holmes, S., Jermyn, D., 2004. Understanding Reality Television. London: Routledge.
Kilborn, R., 2003. Staging the Real: Factual TV programming in the age of Big Brother. Manchester U.P.
Raine, A. J., 1995. Lifestyles of the Not So Rich and Famous: Ideological Shifts in Popular Culture, Regan-Era Sitcoms and Portrayals of the Working Class. [pdf] Scholarworks.boisestate.edu. Available at: <http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.468.6042&rep=rep1&type=pdf> [Accessed May 6, 2016].
Stevenson, N., 2010. Education, Neoliberalism and cultural citizenship: Living in ‘X Factor’ Britain. European Journal of Cultural Studies, [e-journal] 13(3): 341 – 358. Available at: <https://www.researchgate.net/publication/240691184_Education_neoliberalism_and_cultural_citizenship_Living_in_'X_Factor'_Britain> [Accessed May 5, 2016].
Schneider, M., 2010. “Ten years later: “Survivor” and its impact on TV, for better and for worse”. Variety.com, [online] 1 June. Available at: <http://variety.com/2010/tv/news/ten-years-later-survivor-and-its-impact-on-tv-for-better-and-for-worse-15240/> [Accessed May 6, 2016].
“Top 10 Reality TV Shows”, 2016. Time.com, [online]. Available at: <http://content.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1963890,00.html> [Accessed May 6, 2016].
Wallace, D.F., 1993. E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction. [pdf] Review of Contemporary Fiction, 13:2. Available at: < https://jsomers.net/DFW_TV.pdf> [Accessed May 7, 2016].
Wood, J.T., 1994. Gendered Media: The Influence of Media on Views of Gender. [pdf] University of North Carolina. Available at: <https://www.nyu.edu/classes/jackson/causes.of.gender.inequality/Readings/Wood%20-%20Gendered%20Media%20-%2094.pdf> [Accessed May 5, 2016].
