Reality TV getting un-real
We’re surrounded by reality TV shows like Real Housewives. And there’s nothing real about them, writes
Ithought I understood reality TV. I thought reality shows, though wildly diverse in detail, came in two general flavours: the competitive and the fly-on-the-wall.
The fly-on-the-wall examines the inner workings of some rarely glimpsed arena of life or another – Cops was the template and this type carries on in shows such as Bondi Rescue and Police Ten Seven.
On the other hand, the competitive type of reality TV is unashamedly unreal: people go on TV to win a prize.
The game show is an ancient genre, and the competitive reality show is nothing more than an inflated game show. My Kitchen Rules, The Amazing Race, Ink Master: they have as much in common with Wheel of Fortune as anything else. That’s easy to understand.
But now we have this new kind of reality TV, that can best be described as ‘‘Fake Futility’’. In FF shows, no attempt is made to either depict real life or to present a competition. It’s just people, thrust into unnatural situations, where they … hang around.
Take the Real Housewives franchise: they don’t even keep up a pretence of reality in the show title; none of the women on these shows is a housewife of any kind.
These aren’t shows about people doing a job, dealing with everyday challenges, or trying to win big cash prizes.
They’re shows about women being put in rooms with other women and ordered to fight about nothing. Which is far from the worst premise for a show ever invented, it’s just that I find it hard to follow. Look at Married at First Sight. I get the appeal of watching someone marry someone they’ve only just met.
But the show isn’t really about that, is it?
It starts with the marriage, which isn’t really a marriage, and then the rest of the show follows the adventures of the couples as they have dinner and scream at each other.
Everyone loves it, and why shouldn’t they? I don’t know the answer to that question any more than I know why they should.
But some day, perhaps I will. Some day I will comprehend the rise of FF. Some day I will enjoy watching the televisual magnifying glass turned on human ants as much as I enjoy the real thing.
Then TV will make sense again.