Every situation that occurs, whether for the good or bad, seems to have criticism from whichever aspect you look at it. When it comes to reality TV, it seems to have the same affect. Reality TV can be very fun to watch, but after a while you notice that it is not as good as you once thought, and finding problems becomes as easy as 1,2,3. These problems which I have found consist of the amount of shows, the editing behind these shows, and the use of “normal” people.
The amount of shows is increasing as quickly as the birthrate during the baby boom back in the 1950s. Those who make a living by writing for television are watching the work dry up as networks cancel expensive dramas and sitcoms and instead pack their schedules with reality shows (Shiels). Channel surfing is becoming harder to do without running into at least one reality TV show ranging from a game show to a hidden camera show to a show like
The Real World. The reason for increase is:
Reality TV costs about half as much to produce - about $600,000 per hour - as a typical new drama or sitcom. On the salary front,
there are no whopping wage bills for stars who hold out for $1 million-an-episode salaries like the actors on Friends successfully did
early last year (Shiels).
The cost to make a reality show is much cheaper and can be made pretty quickly as well. According to
McGEE McCOVEY, she says:
Most reality productions that I've worked on lasted only three months, with tight network deadlines, which means no job is too small.
I've assisted the crew and photographers, conducted interviews on location in the Florida Everglades, and produced an entire episode
in two days.
That could explain another reason why there is an increase in shows. It makes sense in making them but it becomes more interesting to see how many networks are becoming sleazier while doing so and making these shows pointless and excessive.
One of the big concerns with reality TV is the use of editing and how it dramatically changes the show and meanings behind them. VH1 has a show,
Reality TV Secrets Revealed, where they discussed a lot of the editing effects which happened throughout the show.
-
Joe Millionaire’s Sara Kozer claims her infamous make out scene in the woods with Evan Marriott was fraudulent. The audio of
her moaning was taken from a completely different scene in the show- a back massage Sarah received from another contestant
(VH1).
-Through creative editing on
Married by America, producers made it appear that Jill Nicolini dumped her fiancée at the altar
(VH1).
-
The Real World’s Irene
McGee describes how producers manipulated her into fighting with another cast member (VH1).
Those are just a few examples of what really goes on. These behaviors that are actually shown are induced for the viewer’s enjoyment so people can get hooked onto the drama.
There is another way to hook people into watching these different shows. The ringer is when shows mention that the cast of people on the show are “normal” people. Normal is such a general word that it questions how society defines it. Normal is defined as conforming with or constituting an accepted standard, model, or pattern (Webster's). For reality TV, normal is better defined as people like you and me and that is why it starts to intrigue people. Viewers then tend to watch more because they feel that it can show how they may react to the situations which they go through. It gives them someone to compare themselves to or maybe even model off of. When trying to find casts for different shows, people send in video tapes of themselves either just being themselves or doing crazy acts to get the attention of the people who decide their reality TV fate. Most of the people they pick have something that is so unique about them that it is hard to classify them as normal. Normal should not be something they should be marketing when trying to get viewers to watch because after a while you realize that these people are far from it.
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