"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.
Is it Heidi who had a complete cosmetic "overhaul" on her body? Did we dictate her decision as viewers, by putting her in the public eye and criticizing her choices/body/relationships publicly as well?
ReplyDeleteI enjoy most reality TV. I agree with what Gabler said, it is all about the suspense. The networks try to keep us hanging on wanting more. I didn't watch much of the hills but I've seen a couple episodes and it is all about the suspense in the relationships. I believe that by putting Heidi in the public eye we dictated her decision to get the cosmetic work done.
ReplyDeleteI never really got into the Hills. Even if I didn't watch it, I still heard about their drama. Heidi and Spencer were all over the place after this show.
ReplyDelete