Feb
2016
The Introduction
After giving a brief history of Reality Television last week, I am going to take the coming weeks to discuss different aspects of the shows, starting today with the introduction. Whether the show be any of the four types discussed last week- the first episode typically consists of short clips introducing the very “normal” people who will depicting human behavior for the coming season. Having watched my fair share of opening episodes, I have taken note on a couple of things. The first is how specific people are chosen to have a spotlight moment. Often times if the show has too many people to introduce, they strategically pick certain people to introduce. By doing this, they are already giving the audience a preconceived idea about these specific individuals and an experienced reality television watcher would know these people are the ones that are going to make an impact on the season. The producers of the show know this, and it is their intention to help influence your opinion of these individuals.
Now, I am going to skip to the end of every season, even though that may seem a little drastic considering I just discussed the opening episode, and chose to skip all parts of the middle of the season. But, I promise there is a point to this organization structure. It is clear that any Reality Show will have some type of conflict because that is what people thrive on. Even though reality television is supposed to be real, i.e. no scripts, no second takes, and little editing, these shows are often manipulated to illustrate a reality that becomes over exaggerated and relatively extreme. The biggest impact of these edits is the time constraint. The editing often has to compress hours, day or even weeks into a couple of minutes which could result in completely re-writing the storyline. The editors are able to take specific lines out of context and make their own contexts that still look like reality, when the reality has actually been skewed. I bring this up because from the very first episode, the editors are able to do this. When each person is given their spotlight moment, this is the very first edit presented to the audience and this edit creates impressions within the audience.
This idea of editing, cutting and rearranging is often visited after the season if there is a reunion episode. Contestants attempt to clear their names or set the records straight as they too try to re-write the storyline. I have always found it interesting how the editing of reality television can have such an influence on the depiction of each episode. While I have no shame to admit that I, along with every other girl in the US is currently fawning over Ben Higgins from The Bachelor, my eye is usually drawn to another contestant, Olivia. Like every season of The Bachelor, there is one girl who is often found playing the villain, and while I intend on saving the villain talk for a later post, I cannot help but wonder how much of the show is actually Olivia’s true personality, and how much of it is editing done to make us, as the audience, perceive Olivia in a certain way.
4 Comments on The Introduction
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snw5184
February 4, 2016 at 8:35 am (8 years ago)this is probably one of the most discussed and controversial concept from a reality TV show… they aren’t really reality! It is crazy to think that people in the TV shows pretend like what they are presenting is their true selves, but really they could, and probably are, extremely different. This, I think, really turns me away from reality TV because everything seems to fake. But then again… I would ask the question, ‘does it really matter?’ Does it matter if it is fake if it is doing what it is accomplishing? Does it matter if we do not know the real person in the show if we do not personally interact with them? So I guess what I’m saying is, this isn’t the worst thing, but it’s definitely good to be aware that it is going on.
jts5577
February 4, 2016 at 8:26 am (8 years ago)Interesting post Kaylyn. I was unaware of the power that produces have over reality shows. I understood that reality shows were a little extreme but not to the point in which producers would edit certain lines to take it completely out of context. This post also shows the infatuation we have with reality television. We feed our own selves on the mayhem that is produced in others people lives, kind of selfish. Keep up the good work .
rem5511
February 4, 2016 at 8:25 am (8 years ago)As a shameless reality TV watcher myself, I found this post to be very interesting and insightful. As easy as it would be to believe reality TV shows are genuine representations of who the contestants are, this is rarely the case. I wonder if anyone has ever tried to re-edit a season of reality TV to change the framing. Great work breaking down these concepts in a way that is easy to understand; I’m excited to see what comes next from your blog (especially that potential villains post).
dsh5289
February 4, 2016 at 8:17 am (8 years ago)This was a great post. I love that you’re getting right into talking about the editing as you realize how integral it is to reality television (and documentaries in general). With reality TV, especially, editing is very manipulative for the reasons you described.
What are your thoughts on this? You are clearly a fan of reality television, so I assume it doesn’t bother you, but I know lots of people hate reality television because it’s “fake.” Personally, I have absolutely no problem with the editors substituting reality for their own made up version if it is entertaining. Even when I know something is fake, I can still love it because it is interesting and at least seems possible in real life. We can find fictional movies entertaining, after all. For me, when it comes to reality TV and documentaries, I really don’t care about the camera capturing the most authentic truth. I care if the editing captured truth even if it distorted actual reality. With any reality show ever people will always bring up the possibility that it is fake, but for me the bottom line is “Was I entertained?”