Sean Richardson suggests the Greek philosopher Plato might give us a steer.
Reality television appears to have taken over our TV schedules. From the monstrous behemoth that is Big Brother the genre spawned many hybrids and sub-genres. Faced with a serious documentary on BBC4 or Wife Swap on Channel 4, most of the nation seems to choose the ‘reality’ option. Indeed, Endemol, the Dutch company behind Big Brother, is announcing record profits and moving into ever more controversial programming. In its provocative, consciousness-raising hoax The Big Donor Show 2007, Lisa, the 37-year-old victim of a brain tumour, asked the audience to help her decide which of the three contestants with degenerative kidney conditions deserved to get her healthy kidneys.
The relatively cheap production costs and high audience viewing figures ensure a steady stream of new and repeated formats of reality television on our screens. The ‘real’ drama of the programmes is added to by the interactivity, with the audience supposedly directly influencing events on screen. From Big Brother through Castaway, Grease Is The Word, Any Dream Will Do to Britain’s Got Talent, we’re invited to join in and make celebrities out of unknown wanabees, plucked from obscurity to enter the fabulous life of celebrity and success.
Curiously, the ancient Greek philosopher Plato offers us an ancient model which we can apply to much of Media Studies, and particularly to ideas about audience and our obsession with reality television.
In his most famous allegory, Plato described a dark cave containing prisoners chained to the floor facing a blank wall. They know nothing other than the shadows they see on the wall, cast by objects and people moving in front of a fire. They have lived this way for their entire lives, and most of them are content to sit staring at the shadows.
If you consider the physical act of watching programmes like reality shows on the television or ‘shadow box’, then Plato’s idea becomes really relevant and worth looking at in 2007. The voyeuristic scopophilia of watching reality TV is undeniable.
As well as the chained people, there are other people in the cave. Plato calls them the puppet-handlers, the ones holding those in the cave captive. They walk behind the prisoners and hold up various objects found in the real world. A fire is burning in the mouth of the cave and the prisoners are able to see the objects and each other only as distorted, flickering shadows on the cavern wall in front of them. For a programme like Big Brother, the puppet handler could be the equivalent of Big Brother himself: the voice of authority, issuing instructions, informing the contestants of events and generally controlling the environment. If we think of the puppet handlers as the ‘elite’ or ruling class then this idea of a reality television-obsessed audience becomes controversial, drawing on the Media Studies concept of hegemony.
The hegemonic view
Theories of hegemony are based around the idea that dominant classes persuade subordinate or lower ones to accept and adopt their values. In programmes like Britain’s Got Talent and The X Factor, a panel of so-called experts decide who has talent and who has not. These judges decide who will be plucked from their drab life (the drabber and harder the better), to enter over the threshold into celebrity. In case you hadn’t noticed, the ‘winners’ fade quickly into obscurity and do not get a fabulous life. The winner of The X Factor in 2004, Steve Brookstein, is not an international music artist and you probably barely remember him: he was reduced to working the ‘P&O’ Portsmouth to Bilbao ferry in June 2007 as a cabaret act, together with fellow reality television ‘celebrities’ as Chico Slimani and Journey South.
The network and the judges
The programme makers and the television networks are the ultimate puppet handlers, with their manipulative editing and presentation of the judges to the viewing public. Channel 4 and ITV are the organisations that broadcast the most popular reality television formats. The celebrity lifestyle, mythologised by programmes such as The Fabulous Life of..., is the ultimate aim for the participants of programmes such as The X Factor. The celebrity judges are chosen as gatekeepers to this world, which is almost presented as an alternate reality. If you think about Blumler and Katz’s theory of audience uses and gratifications, then the audience could be said to be using reality television for voyeuristic escape into this celebrity culture. So the audience, crucially, are content to sit and watch the shadow box, pacified by the entertaining spectacle. They enjoy and engage with what they are seeing, with the big interactive buzz of ‘...pressing the red button...’
The appeals of reality television
Big Brother and The X Factor are watched by millions, and the volume of text and phone votes they generate demonstrates the popularity of the genre. In Plato’s Cave, the chained mass have no interaction with what they are seeing. The only way to escape from chains is to reject what is seen, and exit into the light; according to Plato, only the philosopher King can do this. However it could be argued that we mere mortals can escape by engaging and interacting with the images cast. The appeal of following your favourite reality show participant is undeniable, with a slightly twisted appeal of watching someone you dislike. Jade Goody’s fall from grace on Celebrity Big Brother was a fantastic example of the power of the public. The public engagement with race, representation and bullying was massive, with debates on television, in the newspapers and on the radio. The reality television spectacle caused British people to engage with difficult issues which would perhaps not have happened if the programme had not been broadcast.
The love of gossip
Gossiping about reality television is probably as pleasurable for the audience as the physical act of watching it. Chantelle and Ziggy, the on/off love affair of the 2007 run of Big Brother was a major talking point; how much Charley annoyed you was another. The social function of reality television is worth exploring. It’s been said that audiences engage and chat to each other more about reality television than any other format. The passive, silent TV watcher, anaesthetised by television is the stuff of dystopian nightmares, imagined by authors such as Welles, Ballard and Huxley – but it is not the reality! The interactive element of reality television is not just about texting or telephone votes. Social interaction, part of the ‘Uses and Gratifications theory’, is an undeniable product of mass viewing of this genre. The tabloid obsession with Big Brother suggests that newspapers know they will sell more with a juicy reality TV headline. The Sun, Britain’s biggest selling tabloid, even has special pull-out supplements on the contestants.
Case study – The Apprentice
The Apprentice was originally broadcast on BBC2, but became so popular that it was moved to primetime BBC1. The programme follows 16 hopeful business-types who compete in tasks to become Sir Alan Sugar’s apprentice in his business empire. The Apprentice proved that reality TV can be intelligent and popular with both audiences and critics. The slick presentation and candid comments from the participants have made it a massive hit for the BBC and it has been argued that it has changed the face of the ‘reality’ genre on British television. If Plato’s model saw an elite manipulating a mass then it is interesting how audience figures for The Apprentice show an elite demographic, with professionals and opinion makers viewing the programme in their droves.
‘Celebrity’ winners
Past winners and participants of the programme have become part of the infamous ‘celebrity’ pack. Ruth Badger, former runner-up, landed her own Sky One programme Badger Or Bust, a six-part factual entertainment programme, following Ruth Badger’s attempts to turn struggling sales teams into winners.
The allegory of the cave
Behold! human beings living in a underground den, which has a mouth open towards the light and reaching all along the den; here they have been from their childhood, and have their legs and necks chained so that they cannot move, and can only see before them, being prevented by the chains from turning round their heads.
Plato (360 B.C.)
Another former would-be ‘apprentice’, Syed Ahmed got his own show on Sky One, Hot Air, which suggested that The Apprentice created more lasting celebrity than Big Brother. Also, permanent cast members, Margaret Mountford and Nick Hewer, Sugar’s sidekicks on the show, are now celebrities in their own right.
A question of class
The majority of reality television programmes are consumed by working-class audiences, or so elite compacts like The Times or The Independent, would have us believe. Margaret Mountford and Nick Hewer are distinctly middle-class with real ‘Middle England’ appeal. Respectable publications like The Spectator and The Economist have given the BBC flagship programme rave reviews. It is acceptable now for the middle-classes openly to discuss reality television, so long as it is a conversation on last night’s The Apprentice and not the sexual antics on Big Brother.
If you apply psychographics as an audience research tool to reality television viewing, then ‘contented conformers’ are being replaced by ‘aspirational achievers’. Professionals and managerial types are becoming hooked on The Apprentice, looking for insights into cutting-edge business approaches. Or, you might argue, they are hooked on the salacious, gossipy nature of the programme – which is as driven by conflict and confrontation as any other reality show. John Dovey in Freakshow: First Person Media and Factual Television (2000) argued that we live in a confessional society, obsessed with the idea of celebrity and describes these reality genres and sub-genres as ‘first person media’ where subjectivity, the personal and the intimate have become prioritised.
Reality TV’s future
The allegory of Plato’s cave offers an interesting comment on reality television programming, particularly with the notion of celebrity, our obsession with confession and voyeurism, and the desire to get past the ‘puppet handlers’ and the fire to the rarefied celebrity lifestyle. The chained audience theory might be limited by the active social engagement that audiences bring to this viewing experience, as reality programmes clearly seem to serve a social function.
The future of reality TV in the UK seems assured, as new series are continually commissioned. However, in Italy, for example, the state broadcaster has stopped their broadcast; La Repubblica, the national newspaper has labelled reality television ‘a dinosaur’. La Repubblica points to poor ratings in recent series of the country’s two most popular reality TV shows, Grande Fratello (Big Brother) on Mediaset and L’Isola dei Famosi (Celebrity Island) on Rai. Grande Fratello is said to have lost a million viewers last year. The audience may yet decide...press your red buttons now!
Sean Richardson is Head of Media Studies at Penistone Grammar School, and an examiner for WJEC Media Studies A Level.
from MediaMagazine 22, December 2008.
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