The Real World - Denver
http://www.mtv.com/ontv/dyn/realworld-season18/series.jhtml
I watched the first episode of the 2006 “The Real World� – Denver on MTV. “The Real World� was created for MTV by Jon Murray and Mary-Ellis Bunim of Bunim-Murray Productions and Jon Murray serves as the Executive Producer. Jim Johnston and Joyce Corrington serve as Co-Executive Producers of “The Real World: Denver.� Drew Tappon and Jacquelyn French are executives in charge of production. The Real World is a reality show about “7 strangers living in one house� with different personalities and beliefs. The punch line of the show is to “find out what happens when people stop being polite� to each other. I have 2 categories for the reality shows: the “real� reality TV and the “constructed� reality TV. In my opinion “The Real World� qualifies as the constructed reality because of the amount of editing required. Interestingly, there were no names of the camera or editing crew to be found. I feel that the show has gained this much exposure mostly because of the efforts of the camera and the editing crew. These 7 strangers live in a house with cameras located everywhere, leaving them no privacy. Their days are taped 24/7 and that’s when the editing crew steps in to piece together an episode. They have to take hours and hours of footage and determine what they should include in the 30-45 minutes that will air. This is where the “construction� of reality begins. The camera crew accompanies the cast where ever they go. When the cast mates go clubbing is when the crew uses hand held cameras – to be able to keep up with the events. I find it interesting that whenever there is conflict – it will air. Sometimes we even see how things are taken out of context through editing. We will never know the “real� cast mates – we will only see them in the way that the producers want to portray them to us and what sells in our controversial world. From the bars they go to, to the clothes they wear – the cast mates are coached or provoked to unknowingly frame themselves as a certain personality. The only chance we have to get to know them is the “confessional� style room. This is where the member of the cast can come to, lounge on comfy pillows, and have a heart to heart with a camera. I believe it is even more complex from there because the camera serves as a therapist. But the gaze of the camera is the gaze of the audience – that member of the cast lets us into his/her personality and issues. Further, that same cast mate lets us use their gaze onto the other cast mates. We, as an audience, use their gaze to see what that cast mate sees in their roommates. I think it is a very complex exchange of looks because every cast mate gives the audience a chance to do that. In the same sense our gaze is persuaded by theirs.
So, we meet the cast of “The Real World� – Denver. In the premiere episode, Colie, Jenn, Tyrie, Alex, Brooke, Davis, and Stephen move into their fabulous new house in Denver and waste no time getting to know each other. I have noticed that all Real World seasons have a basic recipe for a conflict. You have Brooke, the southern belle; Jenn, the “crazy�, anything goes, ex-cheerleader; Colie, the girl that likes to party and make out; Tyrie, the large black male with great sports ability; Stephen, a conservative, very religious, anti-homosexual black male, Alex, the hot white playboy; and finally, as Tara Kachgal said: “Look at The Real World. There's always a gay teen on there." - The white, homosexual, religious male – Davis. The stage is set for conflict right off the bat when Alex hooks up with Colie and Jenn in the first 48 hours. And things heat up when Stephen tells Davis he thinks it’s wrong to be gay. In this episode MTV has stepped up and is focusing on the relation of religion and homosexuality since that was the main point of the first episode. The problem I am having with this is that the presence of a homosexual in this house is supposed to be normal and accepted since MTV launched its anti-discrimination platform in 2001. But that is not the case. Even Davis himself is uncomfortable to come out to his cast mates and essentially remains in the closet. Before he was put on the spot with a question, he was willing to hide his sexual orientation so no one else was uncomfortable to live with him in this house. Even Brooke, from the beginning of the show kept asking who was gay. As she put it: “It is more fun and interesting if someone is gay. I am disappointed that no one is."
I am disappointed that, as an audience, including myself, we have come to the point where unless there is someone on the show can be humiliated or rejected for something they are or they believe in - it is not fun or interesting for us to watch. I had a psychology professor that once told me that as humans, we are afraid of not being accepted for who we are and because we can witness on TV what happens in certain situations, we can choose to be ourselves or not. So what kind of an example is The Real World to us that instead examining the relationships between strangers, we are willing to sacrifice our own beliefs so we can feel normal by watching someone that is not like us be rejected in front of the whole nation? Tara Kachgal describes “The Real World� as: “The absence of overt television portrayals has reproduces youth homosexuality as deviant and other, achieving what some term, symbolic annihilation."
I think the biggest issue with shows like this one is that teens that are watching them can be persuaded by them tremendously. A gay teen may have watched this episode and felt ashamed of being gay because it was not accepted by some of the cast mates, and more importantly, it was not fully accepted by Davis. According to bell hooks we need to look closely at motivational representation. From my understanding, everything we see - from still pictures, to reality shows, and to the movies – is shown to us for a reason. Someone is “buying� what they portray. We have to be critical of how we choose to use that representation because someone always creates it.