How real is reality TV?
Reality TV as defined by Beressi and Nunn (2005) (as cited in Smith, 2020), is “[Reality TV places] an emphasis on the representation of ordinary people and allegedly unscripted or spontaneous moments that supposedly reveal unmediated reality”. Reality TV implements a diverse set of styles and techniques such as amateur actors/actresses, improvisation, and the use of hidden cameras, surveillance cameras and hand-held cameras to encapsulate the feeling that you are seeing the events unfold in real time (Hill, 2005). However, every reality TV show is different in which style and techniques they use and there is a vast array of shows to suit just about everyone’s interests. You wouldn’t say that The Kardashians were anything like the reality TV show Survivor. These shows are under strict criteria oftentimes by their audiences and what their audiences depict to be a realistic (Kilborn, 1994). Despite these differences all these reality TV shows boil down to the same thing. All of them want to claim a certain amount of authenticity on their show, as well as having the maximum entertainment factor.
So where did reality TV really begin? Documentaries were the beginning of the reality TV phenomena, the medium was evolved by a man named John Grierson who supported the making of realist-documentary types of film. Moving on to the 1950s and technology had been majorly upgraded. This meant it was easier for filmmakers to be less intrusive whilst filming and allowed them to film in the moment which often had no objective. There is a famous rockumentary about Bob Dylan shot in this style. Cinéma Vérité was yet another style of shooting these realist-documentary types of films. Although they too used the less intrusive method they took it one step further and presented a point of view and encouraged things to happen. Furthermore, they had someone behind the camera asking the subjects questions and interacting with them that way. Free cinema which was developed in Britain in the mid-50s started to look at just average everyday people. They didn’t yet focus on just the individual people, but on the lives of common people such as people in trades. This style of reality-documentary influenced social issue dramas such as the well known television show Coronation Street (Smith 2020).
‘Cathy Come Home’ was a groundbreaking television play as it was the first documentary type film that had been shot outside of a studio. It revolved around this young family experiencing poverty and homelessness and people had not seen anything like it before as these types of films were often reserved for current affairs (Smith, 2020).
Looking at what reality television is like today we can understand more clearly where the medium came from and what it was influenced by. In a documentary the film makers gather a lot of footage and have to cut it down to a watchable length, their subjects are often aware of being filmed and that may have impacted upon how they acted or what they said, questions being asked in interviews can be written a certain way to try and get a certain answer. The documentary makers really had a lot of control on what they filmed, who they filmed, and what they chose to leave in their documentary. So the audience only had access to what was presented to them, and how does that relate to how real reality television is today? (Smith, 2020).
Kilborn (1994) argues that present day audiences are far more aware that what they are watching on television is a “constructed reality” because of the advancement in technology meaning that images and footage can easily be altered to make things appear differently. Additionally, interviews with past participators have revealed the reality that a lot of reality television is placed in a very controlled environment, conversations and reactions are often filmed several times and that winners and losers are often fixed before filming begins. Despite reality TV not being real and more a constructed reality, there is still a lot of demand for these types of shows.
References
Hill, A. (2005) The reality genre. In A. Hill, reality TV: Audiences and popular factual television. (pp. 14 – 40). Oxon: Routledge.
Kilborn, R. (1994). ‘How real can you get?’: Recent developments in ‘reality’ television. European Journal of Communication, 9, 421-439. https://doi.org/10.1177/0267323194009004003
Smith, P. (2020). ENGL602 Reality Television [PowerPoint slides]. Blackboard. https://blackboard.aut.ac.nz/
Pop Genres 2020 