It’s debatably the hottest and most talked about TV genre of our time. Whether you’re a sceptic, a cynic or a fan, you’ve been watching reality TV – but what does it mean to you? And how can you use Big Brother, Property Ladder or What Not to Wear in your AQA Med 4 topic on Audiences. AQA Examiner Tina Dixon tells you how.
Reality TV – a phenomenon it is difficult to define, though in a general sense we all know what we are talking about when we use the term. We certainly expect to see real people in somewhat strange situations, and we expect to watch them, safe in the knowledge that they are unable to watch us back.
However we define reality TV, it appears that the genre has taken over our schedules. We have just watched the fifth Big Brother, and after its success a Big Brother 6 is guaranteed; there will shortly be a third series of Celebrity Big Brother, and a fourth I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here has us glued to the TV as I write. This year we have also seen a new series of Wife Swap; Pop Idol; Fame Academy; Bollywood Star; Hell’s Kitchen; Joe Millionaire; Average Joe; Musicality; Location, Location, Location; Property Ladder; The Block, etc., etc.
It seems clear why producers make reality TV: these programmes are relatively cheap to make, certainly compared to drama, and they appear to guarantee audiences. And, of late, one could also argue that reality TV can go as far as the limits of the imagination, given that people seem prepared to do anything to achieve fifteen minutes of fame.
So, what is in them for audiences; what do audiences get out of these shows, and what function do they perform? And whilst thinking about audiences can we apply some theory and contexts in order to fulfil a Med4 question on ‘Media Audiences’?
The audience
The success of reality TV is partly due to the increasingly voyeuristic nature of the society in which we live, and in part due to the obsession with celebrity and everyone wanting to be one. I would also argue that we are living in a much more ‘open society’; not open in terms of freedoms (in fact we have less freedoms), but open in terms of the ‘nothing is sacred’ philosophy. Tabloids and gossip magazines give graphic details and photographs of anyone and everyone. There is very little we don’t know about Victoria and David Beckham, Sven Gorran Eriksson’s love life, Jordan and Peter Andre’s relationship, Elaine Lordan and Jesse Wallace’s pregnancies, Jodie Marsh’s wardrobe and sex life, and Charlotte Church’s clubbing antics. Magazines like Heat, Closer, OK!, Hello and so on have huge circulation figures and even bigger readerships; a trip to the newsagents sees a new gossip magazine on the shelves weekly.
I personally watched as much BB5 as was humanly possible and caught up with Big Brother’s Little Brother every day at 6.00pm. I find myself transfixed by Wife Swap and was obsessed by Average Joe to the point of video recording it if I was out or away. I have to ask myself why? I feel a need to analyse why I watch them, as my intelligence is being compromised to some extent. I know that there is a huge voyeuristic component attached to my own and others’ viewing. I’m watching people in odd situations, with their warts and all in full view, but they can’t see me watching them. Do I watch because it makes me feel better about myself, because I think I am not like them?
I’ve enjoyed watching Stuart and Michelle’s romance unfold on my television screen, knowing that this is not Dennis and Zoë in EastEnders. It isn’t scripted, and should be conducted in private. But I’ve loved seeing Michelle manipulate Stuart into cuddles, kisses and even sex. I’ve enjoyed watching the anger of the Average Joes as they have been rejected and sent home. There is something much more gripping about watching someone crying, or losing his or her temper if there is no script or acting involved. It is a similar experience to craning our necks on the motorway to see an accident. Hoping that we won’t see blood and guts, but at the same time …
Contextualising reality TV – real people in soaps
So how do we contextualise reality TV, how do we put these particular texts into context? There are possibly hundreds of ways of contextualising them, but I will concentrate on the social and cultural as they seem the most apt, and it is important with contexts that they are not contrived, that they are naturally arrived at. Firstly, reality TV appears to have arrived in our schedules at a time when soap operas were becoming more and more realistic: very naturalistic acting/characterisation and realistic storylines and issues. There seems to be few stones unturned in terms of the issues soaps have covered. We have seen drugs, murder, incest, abuse, teenage pregnancy, homosexuality, adultery, rape, sex change, mental illness etc. It is not surprising, therefore, that producers could see that the next step was to use real people and see how they react, hence the title docu-soap when they were first screened.
Read all about it
Secondly, the proliferation of gossip magazines: Heat, Closer, OK!, Hello, Star to name just a few, all of which have a market. These magazines trade gossip on celebrities, but also ensure that readers see them in a way that reveals them to be real people with spots, who have bad hair days, affairs, lose babies, divorce, get married, buy new houses, date unsuitable partners, etc. The knock-on effect of these magazines is to help create Reality TV involving celebrities, for example Celebrity Big Brother, I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here and Hell’s Kitchen. And the other side of the coin is that reality TV creates new celebrities for the magazines, for example Jade Goody, Kate Lawler, Brian Dowling and the participants of BB5 were immediately (and still are) in the gossip magazines.
Instant success – no talent required
Finally, I would argue that, socially, hard work as the basis of success is being eroded and replaced by the belief that if we have an iota of talent (or not) we can go on a talent show or enter the Big Brother house and become famous. Several ex-Big Brother housemates have gone on to become television presenters (Brian Dowling, Kate Lawler, Nick Bates, Melanie Hill, Alison Hammond, Craig Phillips). Will Young has become a household name. Alex Parks (winner of this year’s Fame Academy) was a student at the college I teach and could have worked hard as a jobbing singer/actress but instead was catapulted to instant success, fame and money.
Some theoretical perspectives
Can we apply any theoretical perspectives to the reality TV phenomenon? Firstly, given that this would be relevant to the ‘Audience’ section of Med4, Uses and Gratifications theory could certainly be applied. All four categories of Uses and Gratifications research: (Diversion, Personal Relationships, Personal Identity, Surveillance), can be applied to reality TV.
• There is no doubt that we use reality TV as a form of escapism, it certainly helps you forget about the stresses of the day when you can see people having a much worse day than you have had.
• Reality TV performs the function of companionship through identification with television characters, and there is no doubt that there is sociability
• In discussion: everyone was talking about BB5. In terms of personal identity, comparisons are a relatively natural thing to make: we either take the stance that we are better than the participants, or we want to be them.
• And finally, it is a source of information about the world, not just from a psychological perspective, but also from finding out about a particular way of life – for example, Airport, Property Ladder etc.
Reality and post-modernism
I would argue that you could apply a postmodern theoretical perspective to the reality TV phenomenon. To quote Baudrillard:
Art today has totally penetrated reality.
If we substitute the term popular culture for art this makes more sense. He meant that the border between popular culture and reality has vanished as both have collapsed into the universal simulacrum. There are four stages to this:
• It is the reflection of a basic reality.
• It masks and perverts a basic reality.
• It marks the absence of a basic reality.
• It bears no relation to any reality whatever – it is its own pure simulacrum in which the distinctions between ‘real life’ and its media representations have become blurred.
Reality becomes redundant and we have a hyper-reality, in which images breed with each other without reference to reality or meaning. Though a little abstract, it is possible to apply this to reality TV in the sense that we watch the shows because we believe we are watching real people; which in fact in a postmodern sense is nonsense. They are not real anymore; they are not even in a real situation anymore. In real terms, once you see the mediation process involved, you are aware that it is not a real situation. As soon as Jason came out of the Big Brother house he was interviewed by Closer magazine, in which he argued that we were not seeing the real Jason in the house, but an edited and manipulated version. So, was anyone real in the house?
Reality and hegemony
And, finally, I would argue that the most easily applicable theory is from a Marxist perspective: it is the concept of hegemony. The whole notion of hegemony is that we are ruled by ideas: if we believe that the world is actually a reasonable place to live, and a good education and a good job will provide everything we could ever need, then the system remains intact. As mentioned earlier, the notion of hard work has been replaced by something much more instant – being a contestant on reality TV show. In Marxist terms this could be perceived of as a masterstroke on the part of the ruling class: they don’t even have to convince the masses to work hard anymore, just convince a whole generation of young people that the key to fame and fortune is to appear as a contestant on a reality TV show. It is even more of an incentive than the Football Pools or the National Lottery. What more could we ask for? Reality TV seems to have it all.
Tina Dixon is an Examiner for AQA.
This article first appeared in MediaMagazine 10, December 2004
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