Reality television (also known as reality shows) is a television programming genre that presents unscripted situations, documents actual events and usually features unknowns instead of professional actors. Such shows usually have various standard tropes, including frequent interviews with participants that double as the show's narration, and sometimes an emphasis on drama and personal conflict. Competition-based reality shows, a notable subset, often have additional common elements such as one participant being eliminated per episode, a panel of judges, and the concept of immunity from elimination.

The genre began in earnest in the early to mid-1990s with shows such as Nummer 28, The Real World and Changing Rooms, then exploded as a phenomenon in the late 1990s and early 2000s with the global success of the series Survivor and Big Brother.^[1] These shows and a number of others (usually also competition-based) became global franchises, spawning local versions in dozens of countries. Reality television as a whole has become a fixture of television programming. In the United States, various channels have retooled themselves to focus on reality TV, most famously MTV, which began in the 1980s as a music video pioneer, before switching to a nearly all-reality format in the early 2000s.

There are grey areas around what is classified as reality television. Documentaries, television news, sports television, talk shows and traditional game shows are usually not classified as reality television, even though they also feature non-actors in unscripted situations. Other genres that predate the reality television boom have sometimes been retroactively grouped into reality TV, including hidden camera shows such as Candid Camera (1948), talent-search shows such as The Original Amateur Hour (1948), documentary series about ordinary people such as the Up Series (1964), high-concept game shows such as The Dating Game (1965), home improvement shows such as This Old House (1979) and court shows featuring real-life cases such as The People's Court (1981).

There has been controversy over the extent to which reality television truly reflects reality. In many cases the entire premise of the show is a contrived one, based around a competition or another unusual situation. However, various shows have additionally been accused of using fakery in order to create more compelling television, such as having premeditated storylines and in some cases feeding participants lines of dialogue, focusing only on participants' most outlandish behavior, and altering events through editing and re-shoots.^[2][3]

Contents 1 History 1.1 1940s–1960s 1.2 1960s–1970s 1.3 1980s–1990s 1.4 2000s 1.5 2010s 2 Subgenres 2.1 Documentary-style 2.2 Reality legal programming 2.3 Reality competition/game shows 2.3.1 Immunity 2.4 Self-improvement/makeover 2.5 Renovation 2.6 Social experiment 2.7 Hidden cameras 2.8 Supernatural and paranormal 2.9 Hoaxes 3 Analysis and criticism 3.1 Political impact 3.2 As a substitute for scripted drama 3.3 Union critique of reality television 3.4 Product placement 3.5 "Reality" as misnomer 3.5.1 Unreal environments 3.5.2 Premeditated scripting, acting and misleading editing 3.5.3 Wardrobe staging 3.5.4 Misleading premise 3.5.5 Counterarguments 3.6 Instant celebrity 3.7 As a spectacle of humiliation 3.8 Participation of children 3.9 Youth audience 4 Similar works in popular culture 5 Pop culture references 5.1 Films 5.2 Television 5.3 Books 6 Other influences on popular culture 7 See also 8 References 9 Further reading 10 External links

History

1940s–1960s

Precedents for television that portrayed people in unscripted situations began in the 1940s. The 1946 television game show Cash and Carry sometimes featured contestants performing stunts. Debuting in 1948, Allen Funt's hidden camera Candid Camera show (based on his previous 1947 radio show, Candid Microphone) broadcast unsuspecting ordinary people reacting to pranks."^[4] In 1948, talent search shows Ted Mack's Original Amateur Hour and Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts featured amateur competitors and audience voting. The Miss America Pageant, first broadcast in 1954, was a competition where the winner achieved status as a national celebrity.^[5]

In the 1950s, game shows Beat the Clock and Truth or Consequences involved contestants in wacky competitions, stunts, and practical jokes. Confession was a crime/police reality show which aired from June 1958 to January 1959, with interviewer Jack Wyatt questioning criminals from assorted backgrounds.^[6]

The radio series Nightwatch (1951–1955), which tape-recorded the daily activities of Culver City, California police officers, also helped pave the way for reality television. The series You Asked For It (1950–1959), in which viewer requests dictated content, was an antecedent of today's audience-participation reality TV elements, in which viewers cast votes to help determine the course of events.

1960s–1970s

First broadcast in the United Kingdom in 1964, the Granada Television series Seven Up!, broadcast interviews with a dozen ordinary seven-year-olds from a broad cross section of society and inquired about their reactions to everyday life. Every seven years, a film documented the life of the same individuals during the intervening period, titled "7 Plus Seven", "21 Up", etc. The series was structured as a series of interviews with no element of plot. However, it did have the then-new effect of turning ordinary people into celebrities.

In the 1966 Direct Cinema film Chelsea Girls, Andy Warhol filmed various acquaintances with no direction given; the Radio Times Guide to Film 2007 stated that the film was "to blame for reality television."^[7]

The first reality show in the modern sense may have been the 12-part 1973 PBS series An American Family, which showed a nuclear family (filmed in 1971) going through a divorce; unlike many later reality shows, it was more or less documentary in purpose and style. In 1974 a counterpart program, The Family, was made in the UK, following the working class Wilkins family of Reading. Other forerunners of modern reality television were the 1970s productions of Chuck Barris: The Dating Game, The Newlywed Game, and The Gong Show, all of which featured participants who were eager to sacrifice some of their privacy and dignity in a televised competition.^[8] In 1978, Living in the Past recreated life in an Iron Age English village.

1980s–1990s

Producer George Schlatter capitalized on the advent of videotape to create Real People, a surprise hit for NBC which ran from 1979 to 1984. The success of Real People was quickly copied by ABC with That's Incredible, a stunt show co-hosted by Fran Tarkenton.

Canadian TV ran Thrill of a Lifetime, a fantasies-fulfilled reality show from 1982 to 1988 which was revived in 2001-03.

In 1985, underwater cinematographer Al Giddings teamed with former Miss America Shawn Weatherly on the NBC series Oceanquest. Oceanquest chronicled Weatherly's adventures scuba diving in various exotic locales. Weatherly was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Achievement in informational programming.^[9]

COPS, which first aired in the spring of 1989 and came about partly due to the need for new programming during the 1988 Writers Guild of America strike,^[10] showed police officers on duty apprehending criminals; it introduced the camcorder look and cinéma vérité feel of much of later reality television.

The series Nummer 28, which aired on Dutch television in 1991, originated the concept of putting strangers together in the same environment for an extended period of time and recording the drama that ensued. Nummer 28 also pioneered many of the stylistic conventions that have since become standard in reality television shows, including a heavy use of soundtrack music and the interspersing of events on screen with after-the-fact "confessionals" recorded by cast members, that serve as narration. One year later, the same concept was used by MTV in their new series The Real World and Nummer 28 creator Erik Latour has long claimed that The Real World was directly inspired by his show.^[11] However, the producers of The Real World have stated that their direct inspiration was An American Family.^[12]

According to television commentator Charlie Brooker, this type of reality television was enabled by the advent of computer-based non-linear editing systems for video (such as produced by Avid Technology) in 1989. These systems made it easy to quickly edit hours of video footage into a usable form, something that had been very difficult to do before. (Film, which was easy to edit, was too expensive to shoot enough hours of footage with on a regular basis).^[13]

The TV show Expedition Robinson, created by TV producer Charlie Parsons, which first aired in 1997 in Sweden (and was later produced in a large number of other countries as Survivor), added to the Nummer 28/Real World template the idea of competition and elimination, in which cast members/contestants battled against each other and were removed from the show until only one winner remained. (These shows are now sometimes called elimination shows).

Changing Rooms, a TV show that began in 1996, showed couples redecorating each other's houses, and was the first reality show^{[citation needed]} with a self-improvement or makeover theme.

The 1980s and 1990s were also a time when tabloid talk shows came to rise, many of which featured the same types of unusual or dysfunctional guests that would later become popular as cast members of reality shows.

2000s

Reality television saw an explosion of global popularity in the late 1990s and early 2000s, with the successes of the Big Brother and Survivor/Expedition Robinson franchises.

In the United States, reality television had a temporary decline in viewership in 2001, that lead some to speculate that it was a temporary fad that had run its course. Reality shows with low ratings included The Amazing Race (although the show has since recovered), Lost (unrelated to the better-known serial drama of the same name) and The Mole.^[14]

However, this proved not to be the case. Survivor and American Idol both topped the US season-average television ratings in the 2000s: Survivor led the ratings in 2001–02, and Idol topped the ratings six consecutive years, from 2004–05 to 2009–10).

Internationally, a number of shows created in the late 1990s and 2000s have had massive global success. At least nine reality-television franchises have had over 30 international adaptations each: the singing competition franchises Idols, Star Academy and X Factor, and other competition franchises Survivor/Expedition Robinson, Big Brother, Got Talent, Top Model, MasterChef and Dancing with the Stars. Several "reality game shows" from the same period have had even greater success, including Deal or No Deal, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? and Weakest Link, with over 50 international adaptions each. (All but one of these franchises, Top Model, was created by either British producers or the Dutch production company Endemol.)

In India, the show Indian Idol remains the most popular television program after seven seasons.^[15]

The 2000s saw three television channels devoted exclusively to reality television: Fox Reality in the United States, which existed from 2005 to 2010, Global Reality Channel in Canada (2010–2012) and Zone Reality in the United Kingdom (2002–2009). In addition, several other cable channels, including Bravo, A&E, E!, TLC, History, VH1 and MTV, changed their programming to mostly comprise reality television during the 2000s.^[16]

During the early part of the 2000s, network executives expressed concern that reality-television programming was limited in its appeal for DVD reissue and syndication. DVDs for reality shows in fact sold briskly; Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County, The Amazing Race, Project Runway, and America's Next Top Model all ranked in the top DVDs sold on Amazon.com, and in the mid-2000s, DVDs of The Simple Life outranked scripted shows like The O.C. and Desperate Housewives. Syndication, however, has indeed proven problematic; shows such as Fear Factor, COPS and Wife Swap in which each episode is self-contained can indeed be rerun fairly easily, but usually only on cable television and/or during the daytime (COPS and America's Funniest Home Videos being exceptions). Season-long competitions such as The Amazing Race, Survivor, and America's Next Top Model generally perform more poorly and usually must be rerun in marathons to draw the necessary viewers to make it worthwhile. (Even in these cases, it is not always successful: Dancing with the Stars was picked up for a ten-season run on GSN in 2012, has run in marathon format, but experienced very poor ratings.) Another option is to create documentaries around series including extended interviews with the participants and outtakes not seen in the original airings; the syndicated series American Idol Rewind is an example of this strategy.

COPS has had huge success in syndication, direct response sales and DVD. A FOX staple since 1989, COPS has, as of 2013, outlasted all competing scripted police shows. Another series that has seen wide success is "Cheaters", which has been running since 2000 in the US and is syndicated in over 100 countries worldwide.

In 2001, the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences added the reality genre to the Emmy Awards with the category of Outstanding Reality Program. In 2003, to better differentiate between competition and informational reality programs, a second category, Outstanding Reality-Competition Program, was added. In 2008, a third category, Outstanding Host for a Reality or Reality-Competition Program, was added.

In 2010, The Tester became the first reality television show aired over a videogame console.^[17]

2010s

By 2012, many of the long-running reality television show franchises in the United States, such as American Idol, Dancing with the Stars and The Bachelor, had begun to see declining ratings.^[18] However, reality television as a whole remained highly durable in the U.S., with hundreds of shows across many channels. In 2012 New York Magazine's Vulture blog published a humorous Venn diagram showing popular themes across American reality shows then running, including shows set in the U.S. states of Alaska, Lousiana and Texas, shows about cakes, weddings and pawnbrokers, and shows, usually competition-based, whose title includes the word "Wars".^[19]

Subgenres

The genre of reality television consists of various subgenres.

Documentary-style

In many "reality" TV programs, camera shooting and footage editing give the viewer the impression that they are passive observers following people going about their daily personal and professional activities; this style of filming is often referred to as fly on the wall or factual television. Story "plots" are often constructed via editing or planned situations, with the results resembling soap operas—hence the terms docusoap and docudrama. Documentary style programs give viewers a private look into the lives of the subjects.

Within documentary-style reality television are several subcategories or variants:

Special living environment

Some documentary-style programs place cast members, who in most cases previously did not know each other, in artificial living environments; The Real World is the originator of this style. In almost every other such show, cast members are given a specific challenge or obstacle to overcome. Road Rules, which started in 1995 as a spin-off of The Real World, started this pattern: the cast traveled across the country guided by clues and performing tasks.

Big Brother is probably the best known program of this type in the world with different versions produced in many countries around the globe. Another example of a show in this category The 1900 House, involves historical re-enactment with cast members hired to live and work as people of a specific time and place. 2001's Temptation Island achieved some notoriety by placing several couples on an island surrounded by single people in order to test the couples' commitment to each other. U8TV: The Lofters combined the "special living environment" format with the "professional activity" format noted below; in addition to living together in a loft, each member of the show's cast was hired to host a television program for a Canadian cable channel.

Celebrities

Another subset of fly-on-the-wall-style shows involves celebrities. Often these show a celebrity going about their everyday life: notable examples include The Anna Nicole Show, The Osbournes, Gene Simmons Family Jewels, Newlyweds: Nick and Jessica, and Hogan Knows Best. In other shows, celebrities are put on location and given a specific task or tasks; these include Celebrity Big Brother, The Simple Life, Tommy Lee Goes to College, The Surreal Life, and I'm a Celebrity... Get Me out of Here!. VH1 has created an entire block of shows dedicated to celebrity reality, known as "Celebreality". This form of documentary follows the lives of celebrities, often as they take on new tasks and ventures. Shows such as these are often created with the idea of promotion of a celebrity product or upcoming project.

Professional activities

Some documentary-style shows portray professionals either going about day-to-day business or performing an entire project over the course of a series. One early example (and the longest running reality show of any genre) is COPS which has been airing since 1989.

Other examples of this type of reality show include the American shows Miami Ink, Bikini Barbershop, The First 48, Dog the Bounty Hunter, Dog Whisperer, American Chopper and Deadliest Catch; the British shows Airport, Police Stop! and Traffic Cops; the Australian shows Border Security and Bondi Rescue, and the New Zealand show Motorway Patrol. The US cable networks TLC and A&E in particular show a number of this type of reality show.

VH1's 2001 show Bands on the Run was a notable early hybrid, in that the show featured four unsigned bands touring and making music as a professional activity, but also pitted the bands against one another in game show fashion to see which band could make the most money.

Subcultures

Some documentary-style shows shed light on cultures and lifestyles rarely seen otherwise by most of their viewers. One example is shows about disabled people or people who have unusual physical circumstances, such as the American TV shows Push Girls and Little People, Big World, and the British shows Beyond Boundaries, The Undateables and Seven Dwarves.

Another example is shows that portray the lives of ethnic or religious minorities. Examples include All-American Muslim (Lebanese-American Muslims), Shahs of Sunset (affluent Persian-Americans), Sister Wives (polygamists from a Mormon splinter group), Breaking Amish and Amish Mafia (the Amish), and Washington Heights (Dominican Americans).

The Real Housewives franchise offers a window into the lives of affluent urban and suburban housewives. Conversely, the highly successful Here Comes Honey Boo Boo and Duck Dynasty are set in rural areas in the Southern United States.

Reality legal programming

Another subgenre of reality television is "reality legal programming." These are programs that center on real-life legal matters. These legal matters tend to have thematic subcategories, such as court shows, law enforcement documentaries, true crime shows, legal news shows, etc.

Court show

One of the many subgenres of reality legal programming are "court shows." Originally, court shows were all dramatized and staged programs with actors playing the litigants, witnesses, and lawyers. The cases were either reenactments of actual real-life cases or altogether made up cases. Among examples of courtroom dramas include Famous Jury Trials, Your Witness, Traffic Court, and the first two eras of Divorce Court. The People's Court revolutionized the genre by introducing the arbitration-based "reality" format in 1981, later adopted by the vast majority of court shows. The genre experienced a lull in programming after The People's Court was cancelled in 1993. Only short-lived or loosely related court shows aired for a time. The genre then soared through the emergence of Judge Judy in 1996. After this, a slew of other reality court shows utilizing the same arbitration format arrived on the seen, such as Judge Mathis, Judge Joe Brown, Judge Alex, Judge Mills Lane and Judge Hatchett.

Despite using legitimate litigants, the "judges" are actually "arbitrators" as these pseudo-judges are not actually presiding in a court of law, but rather a studio setting where different rules can apply. Typically, however, they are retired judges, or at least individuals who have had some legal experience.

Courtroom programs are typically daytime television shows that air on weekdays.

Law enforcement documentaries

Another subgenre of reality legal programming are law enforcement documentaries. Law enforcement documentaries are programs that capture police officers on duty. These shows tend to be shocking in nature as they comprise of individuals caught in real-life criminal acts and circumstances, as well as confrontations with police officers. The most successful installment of this subgenre is Cops.

Reality competition/game shows

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See also: list of reality television game shows

Another sub-genre of reality TV is "reality competition" or so-called "reality game shows," which follow the format of non-tournament elimination contests. Typically, participants are filmed competing to win a prize, often while living together in a confined environment. In many cases, participants are removed until only one person or team remains, who/which is then declared the winner. Usually this is done by eliminating participants one at a time, through either disapproval voting or by voting for the most popular choice to win. Voting is done by the viewing audience, the show's own participants, a panel of judges, or some combination of the three.

A well-known example of a reality-competition show is the globally syndicated Big Brother, in which cast members live together in the same house, with participants removed at regular intervals by either the viewing audience or, in the case of the American version, by the participants themselves.

There remains disagreement over whether talent-search shows such as the Idol series, the Got Talent series and the Dancing with the Stars series are truly reality television, or just newer incarnations of shows such as Star Search. Although the shows involve a traditional talent search, the shows follow the reality-competition conventions of removing one or more contestants per episode and allowing the public to vote on who is removed; and the shows sometimes show unscripted moments during rehearsals. Additionally, there is a good deal of interaction shown between contestants and judges. As a result, such shows are often considered reality television. The American Primetime Emmy Awards have nominated both American Idol and Dancing with the Stars for the Outstanding Reality-Competition Program Emmy.

Game shows like Weakest Link, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, American Gladiators and Deal or No Deal, which were popular in the 2000s, also lie in a gray area: like traditional game shows (e.g., The Price Is Right, Jeopardy!), the action takes place in an enclosed TV studio over a short period of time; however, they have higher production values, more dramatic background music, and higher stakes than traditional shows (done either through putting contestants into physical danger or offering large cash prizes). In addition, there is more interaction between contestants and hosts, and in some cases they feature reality-style contestant competition and/or elimination as well. These factors, as well as these shows' rise in global popularity at the same time as the arrival of the reality craze, lead many people to group them under both the reality TV umbrella and the traditional game show one.^[20]

There are various hybrid reality-competition shows, like the worldwide-syndicated Star Academy, which combines the Big Brother and Idol formats, The Biggest Loser and The Pick-up Artist which combine competition with the self-improvement format, and American Inventor, which uses the Idol format for products instead of people. Some shows, such as Making the Band and Project Greenlight, devote the first part of the season to selecting a winner, and the second part to showing that person or group of people working on a project.

Popular variants of the competition-based format include the following:

Dating-based competition

Dating-based competition shows follow a contestant choosing one out of a group of suitors. Over the course of either a single episode or an entire season, suitors are eliminated until only the contestant and the final suitor remains. In the early 2000s, this type of reality show dominated the other genres on the major US networks. Shows that aired included The Bachelor, its spin-off The Bachelorette, as well as Temptation Island and Average Joe. More recent such shows include Flavor of Love (a dating show featuring rapper Flavor Flav that led directly and indirectly to over 10 spinoffs), The Cougar, and Love in the Wild. This is one of the older variants of the format; shows such as The Dating Game that date to the 1960s had similar premises (though each episode was self-contained, and not the serial format of more modern shows).

Job search

In this category, the competition revolves around a skill that contestants were pre-screened for. Competitors perform a variety of tasks based on that skill, are judged, and are then kept or removed by a single expert or a panel of experts. The show is usually presented as a job search of some kind, in which the prize for the winner includes a contract to perform that kind of work and an undisclosed salary (sometimes the alternate prize may be a cash amount equivalent to said salary). The show also features judges who act as counselors, mediators and sometimes mentors to help contestants develop their skills further or perhaps decide their future position in the competition. Popstars, which debuted in 1999, may have been the first such show, while the Idol series has been longest-running and most popular such franchise. The first job-search show which showed dramatic, unscripted situations may have been America's Next Top Model, which premiered in May 2003. Other examples include The Apprentice (which judges business skills); Hell's Kitchen, MasterChef, and Top Chef (for chefs); Shear Genius (for hair styling), Project Runway (for clothing design), Top Design (for interior design), Stylista (for fashion editors), Last Comic Standing (for comedians), Scream Queens (for actresses), I Know My Kid's a Star (for child performers), On the Lot (for filmmakers), RuPaul's Drag Race (for drag queens), The Shot (for fashion photographers), So You Think You Can Dance (for dancers), MuchMusic VJ Search and Food Network Star (for television hosts), Dream Job (for sportscasters), Work of Art (for artists), Face Off (for makeup artists), Platinum Hit (for songwriters) and The Tester (for game testers).

Some shows use the same format with celebrities: in this case, there is no expectation that the winner will continue this line of work, and prize winnings often go to charity. Examples of celebrity competition programs include Deadline, Celebracadabra, and The Celebrity Apprentice.

Sports

Most of these programs create a sporting competition among athletes attempting to establish their name in that sport. The Club, in 2002, was one of the first shows to immerse sport with reality TV, based on a fabricated club competing against real clubs in the sport of Australian rules football; the audience helped select which players played each week by voting for their favorites. Golf Channel's The Big Break is a reality show in which aspiring golfers compete against one another and are eliminated. The Contender, a boxing show, became the first American reality show in which a contestant committed suicide after being eliminated from the show; the show's winner was promised a shot at a boxing world championship. Sergio Mora, who won, indeed got his title shot and became a world champion boxer. On The Ultimate Fighter participants have voluntarily withdrawn or expressed the desire to withdraw from the show due to competitive pressure.

In sports shows, sometimes just appearing on the show, not necessarily winning, can get a contestant the job. The owner of UFC declared that the final match of the first season of Ultimate Fighter was so good, both contestants were offered a contract, and in addition, many non-winning "TUF Alumni" have prospered in the UFC. Many of the losers from World Wrestling Entertainment's Tough Enough and Diva Search shows have been picked up by the company.

Not all sports programs involve athletes trying to make a name in the sport. The 2006 US reality series Knight School focused on students at Texas Tech University vying for a walk-on (non-scholarship) roster position on the school's men's basketball team under legendary coach Bob Knight. In the Republic of Ireland, RTÉ One's Celebrity Bainisteoir involves eight non-sporting Irish celebrities becoming bainisteoiri (managers) of mid-level Gaelic football teams, leading their teams in an officially sanctioned tournament.

Immunity

One concept pioneered by, and unique to, reality competition shows is the idea of immunity, where a contestant can win the right to be immune the next time contestants are eliminated from the show. This concept was conceived by Mark Burnett, the producer of the American version of Survivor, for that show's first season in 1999. On Survivor the rules around immunity are more complex than they have been on most shows since then: a player achieves immunity through finding a hidden totem, but they can keep this fact a secret from other players; and they can also pass on their immunity to someone else.^[21] On most shows, immunity is instead achieved by winning a task, often a relatively minor task during the first half of the episode; the announcement of immunity is made publicly; and immunity is non-transferable. Competition shows that feature immunity include the Apprentice, Big Brother, Biggest Loser, Top Model and Top Chef franchises.

In one Apprentice episode, a participant chose to waive his earned immunity, and was immediately "fired" by Donald Trump for giving up this powerful asset.^[22]

Self-improvement/makeover

Some reality television shows cover a person or group of people improving their lives. Sometimes the same group of people are covered over an entire season (as in The Swan and Celebrity Fit Club), but usually there is a new target for improvement in each episode. Despite differences in the content, the format is usually the same: first the show introduces the subjects in their current, less-than-ideal environment. Then the subjects meet with a group of experts, who give the subjects instructions on how to improve things; they offer aid and encouragement along the way. Finally, the subjects are placed back in their environment and they, along with their friends and family and the experts, appraise the changes that have occurred. Other self-improvement or makeover shows include "How Do I Look?" (fashion makeover). The Biggest Loser and Fat March, (which covers weight loss), Extreme Makeover (entire physical appearance), Queer Eye and What Not to Wear (style and grooming), Supernanny (child-rearing), Made (attaining difficult goals), Trinny & Susannah Undress (fashion makeover and marriage), Tool Academy (relationship building) and Charm School and From G's to Gents (self-improvement and manners).

Renovation

Some shows make over part or all of a person's living space, work space, or vehicle. The American show This Old House was the first such show,^{[citation needed]} debuting in 1979. The British show Changing Rooms, beginning in 1996 (later remade in the US as Trading Spaces) was the first such renovation show that added a game show feel with different weekly contestants.^{[citation needed]} Other shows in this category include Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, Debbie Travis' Facelift, Designed to Sell, While You Were Out, and Holmes on Homes. Pimp My Ride and Overhaulin' show vehicles being rebuilt. Some shows, such as Restaurant Makeover and Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares, show both the decor and the menu of a failing restaurant being remade. The issue of "making over" was taken to its social extreme with the British show Life Laundry, in which people who had become hoarders, even living in squalor, were given professional assistance.

As with game shows, a gray area exists between such reality TV shows and more conventional formats. Some argue the key difference is the emphasis of the human story and conflicts of reality shows, versus the emphasis on process and information in more traditional format shows.^{[citation needed]} The show This Old House, which began in 1979, the start to finish renovation of different houses through a season; media critic Jeff Jarvis has speculated that it is "the original reality TV show."^[23]

Social experiment

Another type of reality program is the social experiment that produces drama, conflict, and sometimes transformation. Wife Swap which began in 2003 on Channel 4 and has aired for four seasons on ABC is a notable example. People with different values agreed to live by each other's social rules for a brief period of time and sometimes learn from the experience. Other shows in this category include ITV's Holiday Showdown, Oxygen's The Bad Girls Club (lifestyles and actions), and Channel 4's Secret Millionaire. Faking It was a series where people had to learn a new skill and pass themselves off as experts in that skill. Shattered was a controversial 2004 UK series where contestants competed for how long they could go without sleep.

Hidden cameras

Another type of reality programming features hidden cameras rolling when random passers-by encounter a staged situation. Candid Camera, which first aired on television in 1948, pioneered the format. Modern variants of this type of production include Punk'd, Trigger Happy TV, Primetime: What Would You Do?,The Jamie Kennedy Experiment and Just For Laughs Gags. The series Scare Tactics and Room 401 are hidden-camera programs in which the goal is to frighten contestants rather than just befuddle or amuse them.

Not all hidden camera shows use strictly staged situations. For example, the syndicated show Cheaters, purports to use hidden cameras to record suspected cheating partners, although the authenticity of the show has been questioned.^[24] Once the evidence has been gathered, the accuser confronts the cheating partner with the assistance of the host. In many special-living documentary programs, hidden cameras are set up all over the residence in order to capture moments missed by the regular camera crew, or intimate bedroom footage.

Supernatural and paranormal

Supernatural and paranormal reality shows such as MTV's Fear, place participants into frightening situations which ostensibly involve the paranormal. In series such as Celebrity Paranormal Project, the stated aim is investigation, and some series like Scariest Places on Earth challenge participants to survive the investigation; whereas others such as Paranormal State and Ghost Hunters use a recurring crew of paranormal researchers. Shows such as Fear Factor and Scare Tactics dispense with supernatural overtones and aim solely at inciting fear or aversion in the cast. In general, the shows follow similar stylized patterns of night vision, surveillance, and hand held camera footage; odd angles; subtitles establishing place and time; desaturated imagery; rapid fire, MTV editing; and non-melodic soundtracks.

Noting the trend in reality shows that take the paranormal at face value, The New York Times culture editor Mike Hale^[25] characterized ghost hunting shows as "pure theater" and compared the genre to professional wrestling or soft core pornography for its formulaic, teasing approach.^[26]

Hoaxes

In hoax reality shows, a false premise is presented to some of the series participants; the rest of the cast are actors who are in on the joke. These shows often served to parody the conventions of the reality TV genre. The first such show was 2003's The Joe Schmo Show. Other examples are My Big Fat Obnoxious Boss (modeled after The Apprentice), My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiance, Hell Date (modeled after Blind Date), Superstar USA (modeled after American Idol), Bedsitcom (modeled after Big Brother), Space Cadets (which convinced the hoax targets that they were being flown into space), Invasion Iowa (in which a town was convinced that William Shatner was filming a movie there), and Reality Hell^[27] (different target and premise every episode).

Other shows, though not hoax shows per se, have offered misleading information to some cast members in order to add a wrinkle to the competition. Examples include Boy Meets Boy and Joe Millionaire.

Analysis and criticism

Political impact

Reality television's global successes has been, in the eyes of some analysts, an important political phenomenon. In some authoritarian countries, reality television voting has been the first time many citizens have voted in any free and fair wide-scale elections. In addition, the frankness of the settings on some reality shows present situations that are often taboo in certain orthodox cultures, like Star Academy Arab World, which began airing in 2003, and which shows male and female contestants living together.^[28] A Pan-Arab version of Big Brother was cancelled in 2004 after less than two weeks on the air after a public outcry and street protests.^[29] In 2004, journalist Matt Labash, noting both of these issues, wrote that "the best hope of little Americas developing in the Middle East could be Arab-produced reality TV."^[30]

In 2007, Abu Dhabi TV begain airing Million's Poet, a show featuring Pop Idol-style voting and elimination, but for the writing and oration of Arabic poetry. The show became popular in Arab countries, with around 18 million viewers,^[31] partly because it was able to combine the excitement of reality television with a traditional, culturally relevant topic.^[32] In April 2010, however, the show also become a subject of political controversy, when Hissa Hilal, a 43-year-old female Saudi competitor, read out a poem criticizing her country's Muslim clerics.^[33] Hilal received the highest scores from the judges throughout the competition, and came in third place overall.^[31]

In India in the summer of 2007, coverage of the third season of Indian Idol focused on the breaking down of cultural and socioeconomic barriers as the public rallied around the show's top two contestants.^[15]

The Chinese singing competition Super Girl (a local imitation of Pop Idol) has similarly been cited for its political and cultural impact.^[34] After the finale of the show's 2005 season drew an audience of around 400 million people, and 8 million text message votes, the state-run English-language newspaper Beijing Today ran the front-page headline "Is Super Girl a Force for Democracy?"^[35] The Chinese government criticized the show, citing both its democratic nature and its excessive vulgarity, or "worldliness",^[36] and in 2006 banned it outright.^[37] It was later reintroduced in 2009, before being banned again in 2011. Super Girl has also been criticized by non-government commentators for creating seemingly impossible ideals that may be harmful to Chinese youth.^[34]

In Indonesia, reality television shows have surpassed soap operas as the most-watched programs on the air.^[38] One popular program is Jika Aku Menjadi ("If I Were"), which follows young, middle-class people as they are temporarily placed into lower-class life, where they learn to appreciate their circumstances back home by experiencing daily life for the less fortunate.^[38] Critics have claimed that this and similar programs in Indonesia reinforce traditionally Western ideals of materialism and consumerism.^[38] However, Eko Nugroho, reality show producer and president of Dreamlight World Media, insists that these reality shows are not promoting American lifestyles but rather reaching people through their universal desires.^[38]

As a substitute for scripted drama

VH1 executive vice president Michael Hirschorn wrote that the plots and subject matters on reality television are more authentic and more engaging than in scripted dramas, writing that scripted network television "remains dominated by variants on the police procedural... in which a stock group of characters (ethnically, sexually, and generationally diverse) grapples with endless versions of the same dilemma. The episodes have all the ritual predictability of Japanese Noh theater," while reality TV is "the liveliest genre on the set right now. It has engaged hot-button cultural issues—class, sex, race—that respectable television... rarely touches."^[39]

Television critic James Poniewozik wrote that reality shows like Deadliest Catch and Ice Road Truckers showcase working-class people of the kind that "used to be routine" on scripted network television, but that became a rarity in the 2000s: "The better to woo upscale viewers, TV has evicted its mechanics and dockworkers to collect higher rents from yuppies in coffeehouses."^[40]

Union critique of reality television

Writers for reality television do not receive union pay-scale compensation and union representation, which significantly decreases expenditures for producers and broadcasters.^[2] Many of the actors in reality television are compensated for their appearances.^{[24][41][42][43]}

Product placement

Product placement, whereby companies and corporations pay to have their products included in television programming for marketing purposes, is highly prevalent in reality television.^[44][45]

The following is a list of television shows with the most instances of product placement (11/07–11/08; Nielsen Media Research)^{[citation needed]}. Eight out of the nine are reality television shows.

• The Biggest Loser 1,026,248
• American Idol, 504,636
• Extreme Makeover: Home Edition', 13,371
• America's Toughest Jobs, 12,807
• Deal or No Deal, 2,292
• America's Next Top Model, 12,241
• Last Comic Standing, 1,993
• Kitchen Nightmares 1,853
• Hell's Kitchen, 1,807

"Reality" as misnomer

Unreal environments

In competition-based programs such as Big Brother and Survivor, and other special living environment shows like The Real World, the producers design the format of the show and control the day-to-day activities and the environment, creating a completely fabricated world in which the competition plays out. Producers specifically select the participants and use carefully designed scenarios, challenges, events, and settings to encourage particular behaviors and conflicts. Mark Burnett, creator of Survivor and other reality shows, has agreed with this assessment, and avoids the word "reality" to describe his shows; he has said, "I tell good stories. It really is not reality TV. It really is unscripted drama."^[46]

Premeditated scripting, acting and misleading editing

The 2004 VH1 program Reality TV Secrets Revealed detailed various misleading tricks of reality TV producers. According to the show, various reality shows (notably Joe Millionaire) combined audio and video from different times, or from different sets of footage, to create an artificial illusion of time chronology that did not occur, and a misportrayal of participant behaviors and actions.^[47]

An episode of the NBC drama Harry's Law used the industry jargon "Franken-bites" and gave an example of the audio-splicing trick, which is used to force dialogue that is needed for the drama/story/script, but not actually said by the cast members.

In docusoap programming, which follows people in their daily life, producers may be highly deliberate in their editing strategies, able to portray certain participants as heroes or villains, and may guide the drama through altered chronology and selective presentation of events. A Season 3 episode of Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe included a segment on the ways in which selective editing can be used to this end.^[13]

Reality television shows have faced speculation that the participants themselves are involved in fakery, acting out storylines that have been planned in advance by producers.^[2] The Hills is one notable example; the show faced allegations that its plots are scripted ahead of time. During the second season of Hell's Kitchen, it was speculated that the customers eating meals prepared by the contestants were in fact paid actors.^[48]

Daniel Petrie Jr., president of the Writers Guild of America-West, stated in 2004, "We look at reality TV, which is billed as unscripted, and we know it is scripted. We understand that shows don't want to call the writers writers because they want to maintain the illusion that it is reality, that stuff just happens."^[2]

Various alumni of the MTV reality series The Real World have related incidents in which the producers staged or attempted to stage incidents for the cameras.^[49][50] During a reunion show featuring the first four Real World casts, Heather Gardner, of the original New York cast, questioned members of the San Francisco cast if their situations were real, noting that situations from the original season seemed to repeat themselves in subsequent ones. On an edition of the E! True Hollywood Story that spotlighted the series, cast member Jon Brennan revealed that he was asked by the producers to state on the air that he felt hatred towards housemate Tami Roman for her decision to have an abortion, and that he refused to do so, stating that although he disagreed with her decision, he did not feel hatred towards her. Lars Schlichting of The Real World: London related an instance in which roommate Mike Johnson asked a question when cameras were not present, and then asked the same question five minutes later when cameras were present, which Schlichting added was not typical of Johnson.^[51] Producers have also been accused of selectively editing material in order to give the false impression of certain emotional reactions or statements from the castmates.^[52] New York cast member Rebecca Blasband says producers paid a man $100 to ask her out on a date, and that she terminated that plan when she learned of it. She also says that a heated argument she and Kevin Powell had in the seventh episode of that season was edited to make both of them appear more extreme.^[53]

Professional wrestler Hulk Hogan, whose family starred in the reality series Hogan Knows Best and Brooke Knows Best, explains in his 2009 autobiography My Life Outside the Ring, that paying unionized camera crews to film subjects continuously until something telegenic or dramatic occurs would be prohibitively expensive, and that as a result, such shows are "soft-scripted", and follow a tightly regimented shooting schedule that allows for typical work-related considerations such as lunch breaks. When filming soft-scripted shows, the subjects are given a scenario by the producers to act out, perhaps an exaggerated version of something likely to be encountered in their real lives, are informed of the outcome, and possible "beats" in between, and instructed to improvise, which Hogan says is a version of what he did as a professional wrestler. According to Hogan, this would result in behavior that members of his family would never exhibit in real life, as when his son, Nick tossed water balloons at neighbors from a window, or when his wife would wake up early to apply makeup and do her hair before camera crews arrived to film shots of the couple sleeping.^[54]

Multiple takes of scenes can be shot in reality shows, including ones that may be presented to viewers as being unrehearsed, such as the scenes on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition in which families learn that they have been selected to receive a home makeover.^[55]

Mike Fleiss, creator of The Bachelor and The Bachelorette, as well as former contestants, have stated that both shows are scripted. The Bachelorette Season 4 winner, Jesse Csincsak, stated that contestants on those series are required to follow producers' orders, and that storylines are fabricated in the editing room.^[56] Season 13 participants Megan Parris related, "I don't think [the producers] showed any real conversation I had with anyone... The viewers fail to realize that editing is what makes the show... You'll hear someone make one comment and then they'll show a clip of somebody's face to make it look like that is their facial reaction to that statement, but really, somebody made that face the day before to something else. It's just piecing things together to make a story."^[57] Parris also stated that producers "bully" and berate contestants into saying specific things to the camera that the contestants do not wish to say.^[58][59] Fleiss stated in an appearance on 20/20 that he develops the show's contestants into characters that will cater to his audience's tastes and that they "need [their] fair share of villains every season."^[60][61] On February 24, 2012, during the filming of The Women Tell All episode of The Bachelor Season 16, what should have been a private conversation between contestant Courtney Robertson and one of the show’s producers went public when the microphones were accidentally left on in between camera takes. The leaked conversation revealed the producer's role as an acting coach who was encouraging Robertson to fake certain emotions for the camera which she was not feeling.^[62]

The History series Pawn Stars depicts three generations of the Harrison family working at their family-owned Gold & Silver Pawn Shop in Las Vegas. However, as a result of the filming that takes place there, the four main cast members no longer work the counter, due to laws that require the identity of customers pawning items to remain confidential, and the tourists and fans taking photos and video in the showroom that would preclude this. When shooting episodes of the series, the shop is temporarily closed, with only a handful of customers allowed into the showroom.^[63]

The investors on the ABC series Shark Tank have admitted that some of the entrepreneurs who obtain investment deals from them on the show never receive financing, as some of the agreements fall through after the investors make closer inspections of the entrepreneurs' financial records.^[64]

Dave Hester, one of the stars of the A&E series Storage Wars, filed a lawsuit against A&E in December 2012, saying that he was fired after he complained to the network and the production company that produces the show that the series is staged. According to Hester, the items that are seen in the abandoned storage containers that are acquired by the series' cast are appraised in advance before being planted in the containers by A&E, which pays for storage lockers for "weaker" cast members, scripts the cast member interviews, and stages the auctions seen on the show. A&E denied the accusation, saying that the show is entirely authentic.^[65]

On February 4, 2013, Russell Jay, a producer on the series Keeping Up with the Kardashians, stated in a 165-page deposition in the divorce proceedings of star Kim Kardashian and her husband, Kris Humphries, that at least two of the scenes that were shot for that series were scripted, reshot or edited in order to cast Humphries in a negative light following Kardashian's decision to divorce him.^[66][67]

Wardrobe staging

Some shows, such as Survivor, do not allow the participants to wear clothing of their own choosing while on camera, to promote the participants' wearing of "camera-friendly colors" and to prevent the participants from wearing the same style and/or color of clothing. Additionally, some prohibited clothing with corporate logos.^[68]

Misleading premise

The very premise of some reality shows has been called into question. The winner of the first season, in 2003, of America's Next Top Model, Adrianne Curry, claimed that part of the grand prize she received, a modeling contract with Revlon, was for a much smaller amount of work than what was promised throughout the show.^[69] During the airing of the first season of A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila, in which a group of both men and women vied for the heart of Tila Tequila, there were rumors that its star was not only heterosexual, but also had a boyfriend already.^[70] The show's winner, Bobby Banhart, claimed that he never saw Ms. Tequila again after the show finished taping, and that he was not given her telephone number.^[71]

Counterarguments

Geoff King argues in his book, Spectacle of the Real: From Hollywood to Reality TV and Beyond that even though the contestants are in a fabricated setting and the situation has been set up for a certain outcome, as in shows such as The Bachelor and The Bachelorette, what emerges on the screen is still grounded in reality. King writes:

“

I would argue, rather, that the simulated setting stimulates feeling, in part because the removal of the participants from their normal surroundings strips them to nothing but the space and affect of social interaction. The intimacy that arises out of this amplified situation is real – both for the participants and for the viewers.[72]

”

Instant celebrity

Reality television has the potential to turn its participants into national celebrities, at least for a short period. This is most notable in talent-search programs such as the Idol and X Factor series, which have spawned music stars in many of the countries in which they have aired. Many other shows, however, have made at least temporary celebrities out of their participants; some participants have then been able to parlay this fame into media and merchandising careers. For example, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, a contestant on Survivor: The Australian Outback, later became a host on morning talk show The View. Jamie Chung (from The Real World: San Diego), Kristin Cavallari (from Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County) and NeNe Leakes (from The Real Housewives of Atlanta) all have had acting careers since appearing on reality television. Several cast members of MTV's Jersey Shore have had lucrative endorsement deals, and in some cases their own product lines. Tiffany Pollard, originally a contestant on Flavor of Love, was eventually given four additional reality series of her own on VH1. In Britain, Jade Goody became famous after appearing on Big Brother 3 in 2002; she later appeared on other reality programs, wrote a bestselling autobiography and launched a top-selling perfume line. She later received extensive media coverage during her battle with cervical cancer, from which she died in 2009. Bethenny Frankel, who gained fame after appearing on several reality TV shows, launched the successful brand Skinnygirl Cocktails, and is slated to host her own talk show, Bethenny. Two castmembers of non-athletic reality shows, Mike "The Miz" Mizanin (from The Real World and its spin-off, The Challenge) and David Otunga (from I Love New York), became professional wrestlers for WWE. Some reality-television alumni have parlayed their fame into paid public appearances.^[73][74]

In a rare case of a reality television alumnus succeeding in the political arena, The Real World: Boston castmember Sean Duffy is currently a U.S. Representative from Wisconsin.

Several socialites, or children of famous parents, who were somewhat well-known before they appeared on reality television shows have become much more famous as a result, including Paris Hilton, Nicole Richie, Kelly Osbourne, Kim Kardashian, and many of the rest of the Kardashian family.

Reality TV contestants are sometimes derided as "Z-list celebrities", "Bravolebrities", and/or "nonebrities" who have done nothing to warrant their newfound fame.^[75] Some have been lampooned for exploiting an undeserved "15 minutes of fame".^[76] The Kardashian family is one such group of reality television personalities who were subject to this criticism in the 2010s.^[76][77]

As a spectacle of humiliation

Some have claimed that the success of reality television is due to its ability to provide schadenfreude, by satisfying the desire of viewers to see others humiliated. American magazine Entertainment Weekly wrote, "Do we watch reality television for precious insight into the human condition? Please. We watch for those awkward scenes that make us feel a smidge better about our own little unfilmed lives."^[78] Media analyst Tom Alderman wrote, "There is a sub-set of Reality TV that can only be described as Shame TV because it uses humiliation as its core appeal."^[79]

Television critic James Poniewozik has disagreed with this assessment, writing, "for all the talk about 'humiliation TV,' what's striking about most reality shows is how good humored and resilient most of the participants are: the American Idol rejectees stubbornly convinced of their own talent, the Fear Factor players walking away from vats of insects like Olympic champions. What finally bothers their detractors is, perhaps, not that these people are humiliated but that they are not."^[80]

Participation of children

Criticism, and a legal inquiry, were raised regarding the participation of the Gosselin children in the 2007-2011 series Jon & Kate Plus 8 (later renamed Kate Plus 8), as to whether or not the children were exploited or were under emotional distress.^[81] At the time the show was being filmed there were no clear laws in Pennsylvania (where the Gosselins resided) regarding a child's appearance on a reality show.^[82] However, Pennsylvania law permits children who are at least seven years old to work in the entertainment industry, as long as certain guidelines are followed and a permit is obtained. For example, children may not work after 11:30 PM under most circumstances, or perform in any location that serves alcohol.^[82] Both parents defended the children's involvement, stating they were happy and healthy.^[81][83] TLC released a statement saying that the network "fully complies with all applicable laws and regulations" to produce the show.^[82]

The 2009 balloon boy hoax, in which a father pretended that his six-year-old son was caught in an out-of-control helium balloon, reportedly in order to get publicity in order to get the family back into the reality-show business (after two appearances on ABC's Wife Swap), also raised questions about the exploitation of children. In an interview with the Denver Post, child psychologist Alan Zimmerman said, "Using your family or children to please the masses, or producers of mass entertainment who want ratings and a good bottom line, is inherently risky [...] They are by definition a commodity in a profit-oriented business." The same article quoted psychologist Jamie Huysman as saying, "It is exploitation [...] Nobody wants to watch normal behavior. Kids have to be co-conspirators to get the camera to stay on."^[84]

Youth audience

In 2006, four of the ten most popular programs among viewers under 17 were reality shows.^[85] Studies have shown that young people emulate the behavior displayed on these programs, gathering much of their knowledge of the social world, particularly about consumer practices, from television.^{[34][86][87][88]}

In 2007, according to the Learning and Skills Council, one in seven UK teenagers hoped to gain fame by appearing on reality television.^[89]

Similar works in popular culture

A number of fictional works since the 1940s have contained elements similar to elements of reality television. They tended to be set in a dystopian future, with subjects being recorded against their will, and often involved violence.

• "The Seventh Victim" (1953) was a short story by science fiction author Robert Sheckley that depicted a futuristic game in which one player gets to hunt down another player and kill him. The first player who can score ten kills wins the grand prize. This story was the basis for the Italian film The 10th Victim (1965).
• You're Another, a 1955 short story by Damon Knight, is about a man who discovers that he is an actor in a "livie", a live-action show that is viewed by billions of people in the future.
• A King in New York, a 1957 film written and directed by Charlie Chaplin has the main character, a fictional European monarch portrayed by Chaplin, secretly filmed while talking to people at a New York cocktail party. The footage is later turned into a television show within the film.
• "The Prize of Peril"^[90] (1958), another Robert Sheckley story, was about a television show in which a contestant volunteers to be hunted for a week by trained killers, with a large cash prize if he survives. It was adapted in 1970 as the TV movie Das Millionenspiel, and again in 1983 as the movie Le Prix du Danger.
• Richard G. Stern's novel Golk (1960) was about a hidden-camera show similar to Candid Camera.
• "It Could Be You" (1964), a short story by Australian Frank Roberts, features a day-in-day-out televised blood sport.
• Survivor (1965), a science fiction story by Walter F. Moudy, depicted the 2050 "Olympic War Games" between Russia and the United States. The games are fought to show the world the futility of war and thus deter further conflict. Each side has one hundred soldiers who fight in a large natural arena. The goal is for one side to wipe out the other; the few who survive the battle become heroes. The games are televised, complete with color commentary discussing tactics, soldiers' personal backgrounds, and slow-motion replays of their deaths.
• "Bread and Circuses" (1968) was an episode of the TV show Star Trek in which the crew visits a planet resembling the Roman Empire, but with 20th-century technology. The planet's "Empire TV" features regular gladiatorial games, with the announcer urging viewers at home to vote for their favorites, stating, "This is your program. You pick the winner."
• The Year of the Sex Olympics (1968) was a BBC television play in which a dissident in a dictatorship is forced onto a secluded island and taped for a reality show in order to keep the masses entertained.
• The Unsleeping Eye (1973), a novel by D.G. Compton (also published as The Continuous Katherine Mortenhoe), was about a woman dying of cancer whose last days are recorded without her knowledge for a television show. It was later adapted as the 1980 movie Death Watch.
• "Ladies And Gentlemen, This Is Your Crisis" (1976) was a short story by science fiction author Kate Wilhelm about a television show in which contestants (including a B-list actress who is hoping to revitalize her career) attempt to make their way to a checkpoint after being dropped off in the Alaskan wilderness, while being filmed and broadcast around the clock through an entire weekend. The story focuses primarily on the show's effect on a couple whose domestic tensions and eventual reconciliation parallel the dangers faced by the contestants.
• Network (1976) includes a subplot in which network executives negotiate with an urban terrorist group for the production of a weekly series, each episode of which was to feature an act of terrorism.
• The Running Man (1982) was a book by Stephen King depicting a game show in which a contestant flees around the world from "hunters" trying to chase him down and kill him; it has been speculated that the book was inspired by Robert Sheckley's The Prize of Peril. The book was loosely adapted as a 1987 movie of the same name. The movie removed most of the reality-TV element of the book: its competition now took place entirely within a large TV studio, and more closely resembled an athletic competition (though a deadly one).
• The film 20 Minutes into the Future (1985), and the spin-off TV show Max Headroom, revolved around television mainly based on live, often candid, broadcasts. In one episode of Max Headroom, "Academy", the character Blank Reg fights for his life on a courtroom game show, with the audience deciding his fate.
• Vengeance on Varos (1985) was an episode of the TV show Doctor Who in which the population of a planet watches live TV broadcasts of the torture and executions of those who oppose the government. The planet's political system is based on the leaders themselves facing disintegration if the population votes 'no' to their propositions.

Pop culture references

Some scripted and written works have used reality television as a plot device:

Films

• Halloween: Resurrection (2002) is a horror/slasher film that takes place in a wired house full of surveillance cameras. Each "contestant" is recorded as they attempt to survive and solve the mystery of the murders.
• American Dreamz (2006) is a film set partially on an American Idol-like show.
• EDtv (1999) was a remake of Louis the 19th, King of the Airwaves.
• Louis the 19th, King of the Airwaves (1994) is a Québécois film about a man who signs up to star in a 24-hour-a-day reality TV show.
• Real Life (1979) is a comedic film about the creation of a show similar to An American Family gone horribly wrong.
• Series 7: The Contenders (2001) is a film about a reality show in which contestants have to kill each other to win.
• The Truman Show (1998) is a film about a man (Jim Carrey) who discovers that his entire life is being staged and filmed for a 24-hour-a-day reality TV show.
• Slumdog Millionaire (2008) is a film in which an Indian game-show contestant is being interrogated because he knows all the answers in "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire".
• Dead Set is a British film based on a zombie apocalypse affecting the Big Brother house. Part of the film was shot during an actual eviction with host Davina McCall making a cameo appearance.

Television

• The Comeback (2005) satirizes the indignity of reality TV by presenting itself as "raw footage" of a new reality show documenting the attempted comeback of has-been star Valerie Cherish.
• Total Drama Island (2007) is a Canadian animated series that depicts teenagers on a Survivor like reality series.
• Rock Rivals (2008) is a British television show about two judges on a televised singing contest whose marriage is falling apart.

Books

• Chart Throb (2006) is a comic novel by Ben Elton that parodies The X Factor and The Osbournes, among other reality shows.
• Dead Famous (2001) is a comedy/whodunit novel, also by Ben Elton, in which a contestant is murdered while on a Big Brother-like show.
• Oryx and Crake (2003), a speculative fiction novel by Margaret Atwood, occasionally makes mentions of the protagonist and his friend entertaining themselves by watching reality TV shows of live executions, Noodie News, frog squashing, graphic surgery, and child pornography.^[91][92][93]
• L.A. Candy (2009) is a young adult novel series by Lauren Conrad which is based on her experiences on Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County and The Hills

Other influences on popular culture

A number of scripted television shows have taken the form of documentary-type reality TV shows, in "mockumentary" style. The first such show was the BBC series Operation Good Guys, which premiered in 1997. Other examples include The Games, People Like Us, Trailer Park Boys, The Office, Modern Family, Drawn Together, Summer Heights High, Total Drama Island, Parks and Recreation, Reno 911! and Come Fly With Me.

Some feature films have been produced that use some of the conventions of reality television; such films are sometimes referred to as reality films, and sometimes simply as documentaries.^[94] Allen Funt's 1970 hidden camera movie What Do You Say to a Naked Lady? was based on his reality-television show Candid Camera. The TV show Jackass spawned four films: Jackass: The Movie in 2001, Jackass: Number Two in 2006, Jackass 2.5 in late 2007, and Jackass 3D in 2010. A similar show, Extreme Duudsonit, was adapted for the film The Dudesons Movie in 2006. The producers of The Real World created The Real Cancun in 2003. Games People Play: New York was released in 2004.

In 2007, broadcaster Krishnan Guru-Murthy stated that reality television is "a firm and embedded part of television's vocabulary, used in every genre from game-shows and drama to news and current affairs."^[95]

The mumblecore film genre, which began in the mid-2000s, and uses video cameras and relies heavily on improvisation and non-professional actors, has been described as influenced in part by what one critic called "the spring-break psychodrama of MTV's The Real World". Mumblecore director Joe Swanberg has said, "As annoying as reality TV is, it's been really good for filmmakers because it got mainstream audiences used to watching shaky camerawork and different kinds of situations."^[96]

See also

References

Further reading

• Big Brother - Why Bother? - Graham Barnfield's Spiked commentary
• Hill, Annette (2005). Reality TV: Audiences and Popular Factual Television. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-26152-X.
• Murray, Susan, and Laurie Ouellette, eds. (2004). Reality TV: Remaking Television Culture. New York University Press. ISBN 0-8147-5688-3
• Nichols, Bill (1994). Blurred Boundaries: Questions of Meaning in Contemporary Culture. Indiana University Press. ISBN 0-253-34064-0.
• Godard, Ellis (2003). "Reel Life: The Social Geometry of Reality Shows". In Matthew J. Smith and Andrew F. Wood. Survivor Lessons. McFarland. pp. 73–96. ISBN 0-7864-1668-8.
• Lord of the fly-on-the-walls - Observer article: Paul Watson's UK & Australian docusoaps
• Sparks, Colin. "Reality TV: the Big Brother phenomenon". International Socialism (114).

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Reality television

• Truth or Dare: The Reality of British Television, a panel of experts discuss Reality TV, BAFTA Webcast, January 2008
• The Reality of Reality Television, Mark Greif's assessment of Reality TV from n+1