Post B 1-3
Post 1
“Reality” Television; a genre in Australia that’s in popular demand. But how do we as viewers interact with this content? And why has it picked up so much momentum since it first began. It is believed in the article ‘Afterword, Framing The New’ by John Corner that “the name only worked at all in the first instance because it carried out a board definition” This means, unlike other genres, reality has a lot of flexibility and room to explore. Ultimately however, it has changed over time from its traditional honest and factual documentations onto a more commercialised or ‘for profit’ source of entertainment. One of the ugly truths about reality television is its cheap to make and therefore is an ideal option when trying to reach the 55% quota for what is classified to be ‘Australian made TV’ In saying this Reality TV can actually provide a keyhole to analysing popular culture in our current generation. What is constructed as ‘reality’ is the forefront of what our society deems interesting or of value. Audiences are engaging with what they believe is real and happening in the world (whether in a game show or out in life) and fascinated enough to watch it on TV. Reality television can also be described as a form of escapism, or a way in which people can vicariously live the life of others through a program i.e. the celebrity reality format, such as ‘Keeping up with the Kardashian’. These celebrities are viewed as role models and usually leaders in fashion and popular trends. Audiences gage with these celebrities lives in hope to adopt some of there features into their own. What should gain more attention however is the influence these shows have over their viewers, a topic that will be discussed further in a later post. I often put the word ‘reality’ in inverted commas because there truly is no such thing as a ‘real’ program, as every piece of content is heavily constructed by a group, or individual to make the audience feel a type of way. Although most of the scenarios reality TV present to us are clearly fabricated, its how people deal with these moments and how their personality shines through that is perhaps the real source of entertainment. In the article ‘How Real Is Reality TV? Essays on Representation and Truth’ edited by David S. Escoffery, in reference to the show Big Brother they say “ordinary people are valued and scrutinised for playing themselves, [which] pushes for a coincidence between ‘public’ and ‘private’ personae”. So what can we learn from reality TV? or should we take it no further than light entertainment? Shows such as ‘The bachelor’ indicate and actually exemplify core values of society. Blake from The Bachelor is seen as this young, charming and sophisticated man in search of the love of his life. He is stereotyped as the perfect man and ladies are expected to throw themselves at his feet. This is recognised as ‘reality’ yet is one of the most inaccurate and unrealistic depiction of life and love as we experience it. And yet an Australian wide audience will watch and enjoy the program without questioning its absurdity. In what circumstance does a fantasy man have 24 beautiful women fighting for his love, surely not in this generation anyway. From this we can understand that although male dominance is a stigma of the past it is still represented on mainstream television. The techniques seen in ‘The Bachelor’ to make the program seem somewhat authentic, are pauses and moments of silence as if it was happening live and unprepared responses. In addition to this, voice overs from the women’s perspective are used to show personal opinion and judgment so the audience can engage with each individual personality and grow fond of, or grow to dislike each personality. The sequence and selection of shot has a massive impact on how we interpret the show. For example we may see one of the women’s facial expression of joy when a girl gets evicted, but really this shot was taken out of context from a completely different time. The show is manipulated so that we watch it exactly how the producers would like us to watch it, which is the way in which it will make the most money. Reality as genre is a complex and fascinating category which unlike any other, that has the capability to be as honest or as manipulated as pleased.
Post 2
What is deemed ‘good’ television or high end television is not necessarily the type that has the most influence. This is partly the reason I chose to take a closer and more analytical look at ‘cheap’ entertainment in relation to fandom. Although fandom according to ‘Fan Fiction and Fan Communities in the Age of the Internet: New Essays Fandom’ was initially applied to sports and theatre, it has developed into small communities across a variety of entertainment formats. Take ‘Keeping up with the Kardashians’ for instance- its influence is nearly unmeasurable and for a handful of reasons. The way in which fans engage with each others and the show has considerably changed in recent years. In the article Keeping Up the Kardashian Brand: Celebrity, Materialism, and Sexuality
By Amanda Scheiner McClain expresses “The Kardashians are prevalent not only on television but throughout the media landscape” Social media now more than ever plays a crucial role in staying savvy and up to date with the reality of the shows content. Although the bulk of viewers’ attention comes from viewing the show there is more opportunity for fans to become more obsessive as they follow the sisters every move on Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook and twitter. Not only can they liaise with the celebrities themselves but also with other like minded fans in both positive ways i.e. agreeing and sharing obsessions, and negative ways i.e. Fighting for their attention over twitter. But with power comes great responsibility. The amount of people that tuned into the Kardashians in a single viewing was 1.7 million, and the sisters have a ridiculous sum of 192 million 900 thousand followers combined on Instagram, and that’s just the Instagram and excluding the rest of the family. Its hard to measure the amount of those that are ‘dedicated’ fans, but judging from the mass following a generous percentage would idolize there every move. Therefore, how these celebrities present themselves to their fans is really important. The show puts importance on materialistic possessions and causes drama by blowing small issues out of proportion. It also sets up unrealistic body expectations as these women have flawless hour glass figures that the average women not matter how hard they tried could not achieve. The dangers of there influence became apparent as fans obsessed over Kylie Jenner’s lips and joined in on a trend called the ‘Kylie Jenner lip challenge’ Where essentially they would stick a cup around their lips and bruise them until they became inflamed and looked fuller as Kylie’s do. Doctors warned fans of the dangerous side effects bruising and inflammation of the lip could cause, but that was yet to stop these fans. So how far is too far for fandom? and are shows such as ‘Keeping up with the Kardashians’ leading their followers in all the wrong directions? Being too immersed in a celebrity show can actually hinder our reality and warp your priorities in life. Unfortunately to look like these young women you need a lot of money and that just is not realistic, instead we should be promoting natural beauty that come sin all shapes and sizes and allow fans to obsess over that instead. I personally do not have too much attachment to the Kardashians but already feel pressures and expectations from the standard these ladies are setting.
Post 3
To become conscious of what you are doing and why you are doing it is a great skill to have. TV Cultures has helped me analysis my own TV practises and turned me into an active thinker during any program I watch. Regardless of the genre I’m constantly looking at film techniques and examining how that specific technique combined with another builds to create a certain genre. Watching TV will never be the same. For example when I watch ‘Greys Anatomy’ it is a combination of a orchestral slow melodic sound with medium close up shots to capture ripe emotion as well as a heart felt story line that reaches my understanding that I am in fact watching a drama. Applying any theory to your everyday practises is the best way to fully understand the dimensions of that theory. For example, both the ‘Second Screen Theory’ happen simultaneously with ‘Scheduling’ in my own life. my day to day activities are scheduled around ‘The Voice’ as my friends organise and get together to watch this program in unison. Not only that but do we then agree on who we want to vote for which enhance our interactive experience by voting off our mobile phones as we watch the program. As I was logging my own TV practises I realised I don’t sit amongst the average TV viewer. My cycle is random and quite limited. I suppose the TV I watch, aside from ‘The Voice’ isn’t because of the specific program, but rather because I had nothing else to do with that time. This isn’t to say I don’t enjoy Television I just don’t have as much of a routine as others. This concept seemed blunt and self explanatory at first but as I thought more and more about it I realised its far more complex. I would consider myself your average teenage girl in the sense that I don’t do anything outside the norm. I got to university, I have a part time job and socialise with friends. At this point I referred to my TV log and analysed which times of the day I was turning on the TV and enjoying a program. Most the of the time it was in the afternoons towards the end of the week and over the weekends. Programs that would be enticing to me or rather my stereotype always seem to conveniently play around the time I would sit down to watch. This demonstrates that a TV schedule is far more detailed than expected. With plenty more effort behind the scenes than I first expected. Another key area of the course that I really engaged with was exploring genre in TV and the role it played. A key reading for this topic was ‘A Cultural approach to Television Genre Theory’ written my Jason Mittell, cinema journal, 40, number 3, pring 2001 pp. 3-24. This article articulates that we can not simply take genre from film apply the same rules for television, or across all media platforms. Different platforms allow different genres or sub genres. “medium distinctions are becoming increasingly blurred with the rise of technologies such as home video and integrated digital media, and we cannot regard “medium” as an absolute fixed category (any more than genre)” I found this idea particularly interesting and relatable as on TV these days we see mediums within mediums i.e. on a celebrity gossip show such as E News, a Snapchat story (an App or platform of media) will play on TV and then be discussed afterwards. Therefore, with new technologies we begin to see platforms within platforms and the lines become blurred.
Referencing:
Corner, J 2004, Afterword, Framing The New’, Understanding reality Televison pp. 290-300
Escoffery, D. S, ‘How Real Is Reality TV?: Essays on Representation and Truth’, 2006
Hellekson, K & Busse, K, ‘Fan Fiction and Fan Communities in the Age of the Internet: New Essays Fandom’ 2006
Mittell, J, 2001, ‘A Cultural approach to Television Genre Theory’ Cinema Journal, vol. 40, no. 3, pp. 3-24.
Post 1.
The U.S web and television series High Maintenance, created by Ben Sinclair and Katja Blichfeld uses comedy as vehicle to explore gender relations in an urban and modern society. As an audience we are presented with two characters- the busy and frantic working class, and the stoners. They represent two of the extreme stereotypes living as a middle-aged citizen in New York. Part of the reason we as an audience can laugh at these characters is because there representation isn’t too far from accurate. It goes with the old saying ‘its funny because its true’. Almost instantly our understanding of traditional gender roles and relations are challenged. The “weed guy” who is also depicted as your common middle-aged man, doesn’t seem to have a sustainable job other than delivery marijuana. It isn’t just “the weed guy” who enforces these taboo stereotypes, but his male friend whom he delivers marijuana to, is sitting in his apartment watching pornographic material. Both of these ideas are purposely placed in the storyline to depict men in a negative light- but in a humorous way. In contrast we have a ‘workaholic’ female protagonist whose main focus is catering to her obsessive female boss. Traditionally females were less inclined to take on important roles in the work force and therefore when we watch High Maintenance we recognise the attitudes are new and fit to the current society.
What’s funny though is that this traditional idea of women being more sensitive and more complex than males is really played upon in episode one. She is hyperactive and constantly trying to multi-task by talking and texting at the same time. In a sense the show is trying to depict a stereotype of females through how she acts and what she does. In this case she can’t put down her phone, which is very true to the modern society. Her interaction with the man shifts or switches on and off between texting which maybe be suggestive that females spend too much time on their phones rather than focusing on what is actually happening in the moment. As a whole the show may be suggesting that our generation has a problem concentrating whether it be from technology or marijuana. Shifting my focus onto analysing how the two interacted with each other sitting on the bathroom floor smoking marijuana there is sense of irony in this because the female earlier was talking about how she would rather not smoke with him after a previous bad experience in the bathroom. I realised that once they broke down the separations they were able to relate to each other and get along well. In my opinion what the show is trying to say about gender relations is that although we live in these preconceived stereotype types when move past them we aren’t so different after all.
Post 2.
In this day and age live television is seen across a huge range of television programs; from entertainment to broadcast channels. Ultimately however, how we engage with this live television is forever changing. In the article ‘Co-Viewing Live TV with Digital Backchannel Streams’ “Social media services and micro blogging applications, such as ‘Twitter’, are changing the way in which many people consume traditional broadcast media.” And/or in my example entertainment media. The popular Aussie singing competition show ‘The Voice’ is a great example of how entertainment utilises the concept of ‘being live’ to enhance the engagement of their show. Twitter allows the audience to voice their opinion to the 2.51 million viewers tuning in to The Voice and consequently making them feel as though their opinion has significant value. Not only this but the shows main focus is the idea of judging the singers and by tweeting your opinion its up there with their opinion, so there is almost this idea that you are one of them. The show has become more interactive and by being live audience can participate in the action, which enhances their overall engagement. Live TV can also be recognised as more engaging because there is an element of surprise, ‘supposedly’ we as an audience have as much understanding of what is going to happen as the judges or produces themselves. We are now accustomed to the idea of a show being ‘live’, So much so that the line between what is live and what is not live has become somewhat blurred. We begin to question to credibility that the content we are viewing is ‘live’ or if it is filmed live but completely constructed. in the article ‘regarding television’ critical approaches- an anthology by E.Ann Kaplan states “as television in fact becomes less and less a “live” medium in the sense of an equivalence between time of the evens and time of the transmission, the medium in its own practises seems to insist more and more upon an ideology of the live, the immediate, the direct, the spontaneous” Our generations consumes live television in completely different ways. For example we can pause the show and rewind to re watch one of the singers performances, and pre record to skip ads. This breaks traditional ideas of actually being ‘live’ yet we still read the show as live because of the particular environment The Voice is set amongst. Not only this but with the internet consuming so much of our day, it is a lot easier for a video to go viral then what it was perhaps when live Television first kicked off. Viral videos create free publicity, which potentially could result in new viewers; therefore it’s questionable how many of these ‘live scenarios’ aren’t pre thought of as a celebrity stunt. For example on the voice they are advertising the feud between Delta and Jessie J (the two female judges) to attract new audiences. See link below. In conclusion live aspects of shows are utilise to engage more with audiences but are reshaping and changing from how we traditionally perceive live television.
Referencing:
Doughty. M, Rowland. D and Lawson. S, 2011, ‘Co-Viewing Live TV with Digital Backchannel Streams’ pp 141-144
Kaplan E.A, 1983 ‘Regarding Television: Critical Approaches—an Anthology’