Weeks 11 and 12: Reality TV
1)How have the documentary genres ‘Direct Cinema’ or ‘cinéma vérité influenced reality TV and the presentation of the ‘real’? Discuss in the context of a contemporary reality TV show.
2)How does Hill define reality TV? Describe his definitions in the context of a contemporary Reality TV show.
3)What has the early docudrama (e.g. Cathy Come Home) contributed to the development of Reality TV? Discuss in the context of a contemporary reality TV show.
2)How does Hill define reality TV? Describe his definitions in the context of a contemporary Reality TV show.
3)What has the early docudrama (e.g. Cathy Come Home) contributed to the development of Reality TV? Discuss in the context of a contemporary reality TV show.
2) How does Hill define reality TV? Describe his definitions in the context of a contemporary Reality TV show.
ReplyDeleteAccording to Hill(2005), describe Reality TV is the television program that include variety of style likes comedy, drama, romance, adventure and soap opera, also there is no professional actors, unscripted dialogue, surveillance footage, hand-held cameras, and the events happen in front of the camera directly. Audience suppose to view the whole situation, what happening, how it happened. In the early stage, reality TV started as the documentary or the emergency service, for examples Cathy Come Home(Ken Loach,1966). In contemporary stage, reality TV cover every aspect likes games, competition, guide, promotion and people experiences.
Recently, I have reviewed a reality TV program from U.S.A, created by famous supermodel and celebrity Tyra Banks, “America’s Next Top Model”. This Reality TV is opening sense for audience, how fashion model working and the running of fashion industry. In addition, the program is an interactive competition in which a number of aspiring models compete for the title of "America's Next Top Model" and a chance to begin their career in the modeling industry. The camera not only focus on modeling, it also record the life moment in the model house, include squabble, friendship, reflection, racist, religion and culture. For examples, in cycle 17 one of the competitors is a Christian and she could not accept to shooting in nude or underwear, and refuse to took photo in this theme, even though she got eliminated, there are lots of female model who refuse to shooting nude still support her.
Furthermore, “ANTM” create a huge opportunity for people who want work in modeling, and this show promote more positive message to audience that what fashion industry actually look likes, and show how all competitors working hard and achieve the Top Model title.
Reference
Hill, A. (2005) reality genre. In A. Hill, Reality TV: Audiences and Popular Factual Television. (pp. 14 – 40). Oxon: Routledge.
3) What has the early docudrama (e.g. Cathy Come Home) contributed to the development of Reality TV? Discuss in the context of a contemporary reality TV show.
ReplyDeleteCathy Come Home, 1966, is an example of early docudrama. It shows actors imitating real life people in a certain situation. Docudrama is observant, realistic and factual. In this film the character Cathy is using voice over narration, there is also a voice of god narration. Personal testimonies are included and authentic viewpoints. This is to give a story like feel as this was a real lifestyle for many people of the time. With the god like narration, facts and statistics are expressed to give information to the audience, as this was a real issue.
The topic of this docudrama was evident in England at the time. Documentaries were shown on television and this became the main platform for the medium. Docudramas derived from documentaries.
The topic of Cathy Come Home was homeless parents getting their children taken away because they couldn’t find a suitable place to live. 4,000 children got taken away from their parents because they were homeless. The children were then in the custody of social workers and were placed in homes never to see their parents and/or siblings again. Cathy Come Home became a catalyst for people in this similar situation, and to people not in the situation, that they needed to get more housing for families to live in to decrease homelessness around England. They acted towards their government for action to be taken against this growing problem.
This contributed to the development of reality television in that, it is easy to gain a reaction from an audience through its wide spread use of broadcasting. The difference is that the audiences of reality TV now have a different kind of reaction. Reactions now could be talk about different characters of a show in a community, and how they act and are relatable to some people.
However older docudramas such as Cathy Come Home, the reaction was and still is much more sympathetic towards the characters. Both hold raw content, but again in different ways. There are different types of reality TV nowadays. Some is constructed and some is very organic, for example Benefit Street, 2014. This TV show is similar to Cathy Come Home in that it is about housing in England so is of a similar topic.
They both have different feels in that they are looked at through a different perspective and set in a different time. Audiences of Benefit Street seem to look upon the situation as being the peoples/ families fault, and that they are less deserving of help. They were not put in this situation by the government opposed to in Cathy Come Home, they supposedly chose to live like this.
ReplyDeleteDespite these factors, a reason audiences watch reality TV is because it is an escape from their own reality of everyday life. Whether the show be relatable or not, it is still in some way fictionalized through the aspect of it being a television show, and this is how audiences can detach themselves while watching. People can relate through the situation the characters are in, not necessarily who they are.
Reality TV now is difficult to distinguish as genuine or not. Although the point of reality shows is to be a depiction of real life, sometimes they have been constructed. As in Cathy Come Home, they were paid actors that were portraying real life people. In more recent reality TV they are real people and not actors. Although more recently audiences have been under the impression that these “people” are reading off scripts and what they say hasn’t come from their own mouths. Also, usually the people in reality TV shows are paid for their time, it is a job. This leads to say they are characters/ paid actors just like in older reality TV.
Early docudrama has influenced reality TV in that it is a portrayal of a real scenario and of real people, or more importantly, relatable people. What has been passed on is that drama TV shows today and some reality shows, include topics of everyday life of a society and this is what drives the narrative. Also that real emotions do show, whether actors or just normal people. In docudramas although they are acting the emotions that would be real, they are evident due to the situation. In reality TV the audience is waiting for these real emotions to show in times of conflict etc. (Brenton and Cohen, 2003). Most reality TV shows today hold a display of authentic and raw human behavior which is what audiences can also relate to when watching. Whether the content be from today or back then, this component has remained the same throughout.
Q. How does Hill define reality TV? Describe his definitions in the context of a contemporary Reality TV show.
ReplyDeleteA. ‘MasterChef Australia’ is a Reality TV series that has been running since 2009. It follows twenty-four contestants as they battle it out in the kitchen, trying to become Australia’s next MasterChef.
The show is what Hill (2005) refers to as “factual entertainment”, a term the merges genres of factual programming and entertainment-based television to create a new hybrid genre. MasterChef fits into this as it has factual programming elements that are a mix of a documentary and a cooking show along with entertainment-based programming such as game shows. The audience gets to see the journey of the contestants and learn about cooking and food as they do, while still having a fun and completive element from the show being a game show.
The show also features a number of elements, which Hill (2005) describes as being commonly associated with Reality TV. MasterChef features some professional ‘actors’ as the presenters are likely given scripts but all the contestants are non-professionals with families and day jobs outside of the show. Most of the dialogue that is captured during challenges is unscripted and ‘in the moment’. There is a lot of hand-held camera footage as camera people follow the contestants around during their challenges. And because of the unpredictable nature of cooking in a stressful and fast passed environment we get to see events unfold as they are happening, so we see both the mistakes and triumphs of the contestants food.
I think that the concept of the show is perfectly summarized in a quote by Richard Kilborn (cited in Hill, 2005) in which he calls Reality TV: “the recording of the wing… of events in the lives of individuals or groups, the attempt to simulate such real-life events through various forms of dramatized reconstruction and the incorporation of this material… into an attractively packaged television programme”. MasterChef isn’t an observational documentary of something that would happen in real life, it is a dramatic reconstruction of the hard work it takes to become skilled and successful in the food industry that has been attractively packaged in a way that will captivate it’s audience and keep them entertained.
References:
Hill, A. (2005) The reality genre. In A. Hill, Reality TV: Audiences and Popular Factual Television. (pp. 14 – 40). Oxon: Routledge.
2)How does Hill define reality TV? Describe his definitions in the context of a contemporary Reality TV show.
ReplyDeleteHill discusses how different people and corporations have tried to define reality T.V. In the UK, Hill suggest that historically, channels position “factual programming closer to documentary, and, in some cases, current affairs and investigative journalism”.
For many, the subject of differentiating between documentaries and reality along with fact and fiction has been a tricky issue. Peter Bazalgette, an independent television producer, who produced reality shows such as Changing Rooms and Big Brother stated that “Some of these so called reality shows are more factual, some are more formatted, like Pop Idol. A lot of them used to be called documentaries, but people are now just more inventive with them”. For Roscoe and Hight, rather than drawing a dichotomy between fact and fiction, they assert that factual programming exist on a fact-fictional continuum. They go onto to state that even documentaries don't “provide an unmediated view of the world . . . Rather, like any fictional text, it is constructed with a view to producing certain versions of a social wolrd”. The fact fiction continuum may not further clarify an objective definition of reality tv, but it can be used as a helpful spectrum for assessing which show rely and reports facts and which shows manipulate real life occurrences to produce entertainment.
When discussing contemporary reality tv, Hill uses the continuum as a way of analysing the relationship between “factual programing and various types of popular factual television that make up reality. My opinion, which seems to align with Hills, would allocate shows such as Nature's Great Events and The West on the fact side of the spectrum while putting shows such as Survivor and Ghost Hunters on the fiction side.
References
Hill, A. (2005) The reality genre. In A. Hill, Reality TV: Audiences and
Popular Factual Television. (pp. 14 – 40). Oxon: Routledge.