Hunger Games

"Hunger Games" was extremely disturbing, but in a weird way very relatable to our own reality today. I thought it was very interesting that the actual games became a love story. I think in reality shows we see today, viewers can't turn away from a good love story.

An example that comes to my mind is "The Real World". The show is not based around love. It is based on seven, sometimes eight, crazy strangers thrown into a crazy environment, and forced to live together and get along. Just like in "Hunger Games" the producers of "The Real World" are just like the gamemakers, they control the environment that these strangers are thrown into: the location, the house, and even the access that they have to the outside world. They do not allow them to have cell phones, TV's, or radios. They have no form of entertainment. It forces them to interact with each other, get drunk, fight, and most importantly "hook up".

Here is a trailer for the current season of "The Real World"

The cast of "The Real World" is very aware of the fact that the crazier they are, or the more they appeal to their audience, the more air time they will see. As you can see, there are plenty of fights, and tons of "hooking up". After reading "Hunger Games" and seeing how Katniss faked her way through the games, making viewers believe she was in love with Peeta, makes me wonder how real "The Real World" really is. Are these hook ups and fights genuine? Or are the cast members actually smarter than we think. Are they watching us, the way that Katniss was watching her audience?

Reality TV- America's guilty pleasure

No one likes to admit to the fact that they enjoy reality television. Even those who claim to dislike it, I am sure have watched it at some time or another. How could you not? It's everywhere. And it would not be all over our television screens if no one was watching it.

"But what makes reality so darn entertaining? In the first place, reality, even edited reality as in "Survivor," has the advantage of suspense. If the basis of storytelling is the surprise of what's going to happen next, reality can be better than fiction because no one, not even the protagonists themselves, can predict the outcome," Gabler said. 


This is entirely true. As viewers, we have no clue what is going to come next in a reality TV show, but what makes it more exciting then any "regular" TV show is that we are watching REAL people and their REAL lives. Reality TV has become a guilty pleasure, that most American's like to hide.


One of my own guilty pleasures was "The Hills". This trailer explains the entire gist of the show. 

The episode I watched, again, for this assignment was the 7th episode. There is loads of drama that occurs when Lauren's best friend betrays her by "hooking up" with the guy she is kind of seeing. She finds out that her other best friend, Heidi had something to do with it, along with Heidi's boyfriend Spencer. This clip shows how Lauren reacts to Heidi about her and Spencer's part in the drama.

The last clip explains it best, when the advertisement at the end says, "you can relate." That is the force that drives reality TV. We feel like we can relate to these people.