Rija Faisal
How real is reality TV?
By definition, reality TV is a genre of television programming that is unscripted and documents purportedly real-life situations, starring unknown individuals rather than professional and well-known actors.
The genre of reality TV has morphed from game shows and amateur talent competitions into a genre that now includes a wide variety of particular styles of TV programs. Now, reality TV encompasses unscripted dramas, makeover sagas, talent extravaganzas, lifestyle shows and celebrity behind-the-scenes exposes, dating shows and various competition shows.
Nowadays, on any given night, one can watch The Bachelor, Dancing With The Stars, Project Runway and America’s Next Top Model, to name just a few.
Reality TV shows often involve the use of a host who runs the show or a narrator to tell the story to the audience, or to set the stage for the events that are going to unfold in the show. Unlike scripted shows such as sitcoms and dramas, reality TV does not rely on writers and actors, rather, the majority of the show is run by the producers and a team of editors.
The defining aspect of a reality TV show is the manner in which it is shot. It does not matter if the reality TV show takes place in a real setting involving real people, (in the manner of a documentary), if it is shot in a studio in front of a live audience or if it involves the use of hidden cameras, as reality TV relies on the camera capturing everything as it unfolds naturally. The camera is simply there to capture the spontaneous events as they happen.
So how real is reality TV? While the concept may vary from show to show, each concept is created by someone, usually the producer, the people starring in the show are either hired or land their role through an audition, and though the footage may bereal, it is, usually, heavily edited. Hours of footage are also shortened in order to fit into the restrictive time frame of a single episode. Some reality TV show contestants have claimed that their actions are often taken out of context and edited to be presented in misleading ways.
While reality TV shows typically do not have a script, often, though, they may have a shooting script or an outline detailing the aspects of an episode or a particular part of the show. These outlines might include directions for particular rooms or cameras to focus on, or they may set up a specific challenge that the contestants have to take part in, etc. A shooting script could also be used to create conflict between the participants (e.g, by pairing two people together as competitors for an episode, etc). Sometimes, a shooting script could also include a storyboard or a visual representation of the concept of a particular episode.
Producers and editors of reality TV shows have a lot of control over what happens in the show. They put people together in certain situations, and they get to choose what footage gets aired and what gets cut, so it could be argued that reality TV shows are not as “real” as their name would suggest, as the producers and the editors are free to manipulate the show as they like.
Editors can also edit together excerpts and sound bits and pieces to create entirely new conversation or dialogue, creating a ‘false’ representation of reality. Alliances, fights, relationships, etc, can be created through editing, and footage that might have been captured over a period of days can come to appear as one single scene or situation.
So while reality TV does feature real-life people and portrays real-life events, it can be manipulated in ways that make it seem very ‘unreal’.
References
Winifred Fordham Metz, n.d. , how stuff works, How Reality TV Works, retrieved from: https://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/reality-tv.htm
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