Reality Television, Part 2

Reality programs have become such a staple of American TV that there is no longer a need to defend a scholarly examination of such popular fare as Nanny 911 or Wife Swap. As noted by Los Angeles Times writer Elizabeth Jensen, "Academia has tuned in to television, and it's TV's most of-the-moment shows that are garnering much of the interest…part of a broader…trend in cultural studies that is pushing pop culture front and center."¹ This issue of Film & History is concerned with the relationship between Reality TV and history—in particular, the history and evolution of Reality TV as a genre and how specific reality programs tackle issues relevant to American culture, from changing attitudes about voyeurism and the boundaries between our public and private lives to parenting and class and gender relationships. The essays that we have selected for inclusion in this special issue offer various points of view, from scholars of history, literature, and communications to a producer of Reality TV. As their analyses reveal, even academics are not above the delicious pleasure of watching strangers expose their most intimate moments of daily life.

Our first essay, by Fred Nadis, looks at one of the first Reality TV programs—Alan Funt's Candid Camera—which made our Cold War paranoia about surveillance into a laugh-inducing gimmick. Funt's "experiments in human nature" gently poked fun at his subject (or victim, depending on one's perspective) but also, according to Nadis, conveyed a serious message about conformity and blind obedience to authority that stood in stark contrast to the show's peppy theme song, "Smile, you're on Candid Camera." The subjects of Funt's seemingly playful look at mass psychology, however, were not "in" on the joke. How different such an approach to self-revelation seems from the more recent crop of Reality TV programs in which spouses freely discuss sources of marital conflict and parents complain about their children's bad behavior before millions of viewers. While critics bashed Funt as a hypocrite and unscrupulous torturer, he proudly accepted his status as voyeur and made it joyfully acceptable for TV viewers to play that role as well.

Funt's turning of the camera on "regular Joes" has become a basic ingredient of Reality TV, but the results are not always intended to humiliate the filmed subjects, as Richard Crew's essay demonstrates. A former National Executive Director of PM/Evening Magazine, Crew provides an insider's perspective on the making of Reality news shows that viewers can "feel good" about. Correcting the oversight of academics who have ignored PM Magazine's role in the evolution of Reality TV, Crew documents the innovative nature of the 1980s series and its impact on so-called "eye-witness news" broadcasting. PM Magazine borrowed from the documentary genre while turning viewers' attention to the lives of ordinary men and women doing extraordinary things. "People-focused journalism" was a turning point in the history of television programming; while our obsession with celebrity isn't new, the ranks of those entitled to this label have definitely expanded, as witnessed by the media attention devoted to winners (and losers) of such programs as American Idol and Survivor. Finally, Crew demonstrates how PM Magazine and the changes that it brought to TV news shows (which now borrow PM Magazine's "soft news" approach) cannot be separated from larger social and political trends of the last three decades. From changes in presidencies and viewers' tastes to licensing fees and revenue woes of network stations, the practicalities of producing Reality TV often determine its content and success or failure.

While PM Magazine celebrated everyday "real" heroes and showed the softer side of news, many current Reality TV programs expose ordinary villains—bratty children and slovenly housewives, for example—in order to showcase their individual transformation. In "The Cultural Politics of Wife Swap: Taste, Lifestyle Media and the American Family," Sarah A. Matheson examines how the Reality show represents family life and the class and gender politics that underlie its various manifestations in America. On...