Reality Bites Back
Fox 41% of their budget goes towards reality TV programmes
and ABC 33%
Limiting the number of quality comedies and dramas:
- Reducing opportunities for union represented actors, writers and crew
- The more they bait out advocacy groups, the more controversy a show will generate.
- Offensive = Hype = Increased eyeballs for advertisers and cash for networks
- Making outrageous bigotry less a by product of reality TV than it's blueprint
"Because nothing - not creative quality, not social impact, and certainly not accountability to the public - matters to corporate media companies other than the financial bottom-line."
It can cost on average 50 to 75% less to make a reality TV show, than a scripted programme
Page 14 'giving people what they want' - product placement and ratings
Schadenfreude - is pleasure derived from the misfortune of others + escapism factors draw the audience in
- even the most salacious reality show can be as compelling as a fantasy or escapism romance with their larger than life premisses
On a more subconscious level we continue to watch because these shows frame their narrative in ways that both play to and reinforce deeply ingrained societal biases about:
- Men and women
- Love and beauty
- Race and class
- Consumption and happiness in America
- Reality Tv exacerbates media Superficiality
- These shows are very intentionally cast, edited, and framed to amplify regressive values around gender, race and class, underscore advertisers' desire to get us to think less and buy more, and create a version of 'reality' that erases any trace of the advances made during the women's rights, civil rights and gay rights movements.
- Media both shape and reflect cultured perceptions of who we are, what we're valued for, what we want, what we need, what we believe about ourselves and others - and what we should consider "our place" in society
pseudo-documentry - a production that takes form of a documentary but does not portray real events, rather scripted fictional elements
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