Growing up as a teenager in the 90's, MTV was on the cutting edge of television programing with their show the "The Real World". For the first couple of seasons it seemed pretty real. All MTV did was provide seven diverse strangers a place to live and that was it. A majority of the cast went out for job interviews and internships in the city that they were living in. Instead of coming out to a major city and paying to sleep in a small, overpriced one bedroom apartment or living out of their car, they had free rent for a few months in order to get established once filming ended. A majority of the cast in the earlier years were new college grads or aspiring musicians with a few "first time away from home" people. I thought it was great that you got to see some cast members networking, preparing and going out to job interviews in an environment that seemed foreign to them. The conversations on multiple social issues and beliefs that the roommates had was what made the show fresh and exciting. For example, how would the aspiring male rap artist with the profanity laced lyrics get along with the conservative, Republican female who used to be a man? See, that was made the show real unique. Unfortunately, Puck from the Real World San Francisco, was so comfortable that he set a new trend of being " The bad roommate who is so bad, that we have to kick him out" guy. This caused a huge increase of ratings and a new formula in the program came to be. Every season, " The nightmare roommate" was put into the mix of seven strangers and it wasn't the issue of if he or she would get out, it was for what reason they would be dismissed. The producers of the show then got lazy and decided to put a whole cast of bad roommates into one living area. Those bad roommates didn't go out for job interviews and when they did go out, it was all about the bar and the alcohol. Arguments of relevant social issues were replaced with arguments of who can get arrested on the first day of shooting or who is going to "hookup" within two minutes of being in the hot tub on day one. The other networks then starting copying the same format with different names and different titles for their shows and started to find people who would "act" as if they were not using scripts when in reality they were.
I have nothing against reality television, however it should be exactly that, real people in real situations. Life is not always about getting drunk and having one night stands. Life is precious, unexpected, simple, short and far from perfect. To me, reality television should be just a camera
crew of two people following someone on their normal day without trying guide the subject into doing or saying certain things. I have seen documentaries on numerous topics and issues that are quite frankly disturbing, but most of the time at the end you see a person come out of a low point in their lives and start to actually live again. I wish some programmer on MTV would do the moral right and put real shows that truly show young teenagers what life is really like once high school is over. Life in the real world is very difficult, yet very rewarding when you attain your goals in life. It may not be beautiful or always have a happy ending, but it would show the true results of actions, both good or bad, taken by someone in a real situation. I am sorry, I can not identify with the rich lifestyle of young adults whose parents are paying for their sports car in Hollywood, California but still think life is horrible. In closing how about this for a reality show. Take seven strangers, drop them off on a street corner in a major city. Give them the average rent amount for a four bedroom living area based on the local economy in the city and have a sound man and camera man follow them around as they try to find a place to live for the next three months before it gets dark on day one. You will see real emotion and real human struggle as people's true instinct of survival kicks in, not just some made up drama for a few extra dollars on the side from the producers when the camera men take a five minute break from filming.
Reality TV will never be what it once was. When it hit big with survivor, the amazing race, big brother it was a pure thing. People were from different walk so many people related but then like you said the one bad roommate came or the bad guy that everyone loves to hate hit the living room and America loved it. It’s our own fault for watching the slow demise to what I consider now unwatchable TV (flavor of love, rock of love, real world, ECT.)Where behavior is so fake you know it’s scripted. With all the money they make you think you could get Spencer or Snookie some acting lessons. Then John and Kate plus eight was shoved down our throats. This is how a man and women with eight kids live, bull crap. I’ve got kids and this show is so far off the map I wonder how it can be called reality. The shows are big winner in the TV world. They cost nothing to make and need no talent to have them. When else in history have people been famous for no reason. Just a shame.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your post and how reality television shows aren't really "reality". There have been so many of these characters from numerous reality shows that have come out and said they were told by producers to respond certain ways to situations that would come up. That is acting, plain and simple.
ReplyDeleteAlso, there are hundreds of hours of filming, since they are following these characters from morning to evening. These hundreds of hours can be edited to make anyone look a certain way. If a character is having a bad day, the editing team had several hours to make them the super villain. I have also heard of so many people say they were shocked to see how their words and actions were twisted to look as if they were villains. Ratings are everything to these producers, so they will try to get these types of emotions out. They will assist and edit these hours to pull at our emotions, and keep us watching.