Chapter 1: What is the impact of reality TV on our perception of reality?
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We've become bored with watching actors give us phony emotions. We're tired of pyrotechnics and special effects.
While the world he inhabits is in some respects counterfeit, there's nothing fake about Truman himself. No scripts, no cue cards.
It isn't always Shakespeare, but it's genuine. It's a life.
Fade the music up.
Three, two, one, quick cut to FBoy Island.
Women have been forced to tolerate the manipulative douchebaggery of FBoys for far too long.
And that's why we're here. Welcome to FBoy Island.
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Chapter 2: How does casting influence the dynamics of reality shows?
I don't know that it's necessarily going to be a computer problem. I think it's going to be a social and people problem. There is a lot of social anxiety about the fast and the rapidly increasing pace of technology and how that is impacting everyday life. Have we become so dependent on computers that our society is at risk if they fail? My name is Raquel Gates.
I am an associate professor of film and media studies at Columbia University. I find it very fitting that then we get this show, which is all about like a return to nature and like, can you build a fire? I came from, you know, a working class neighborhood in Miami, you know, so I'm like, how bad could it be? To quote the Lion King, I laugh in the face of danger.
I am Dr. Jatia Hart.
I am a nuclear engineer. I was on Survivor season 28.
We're doing three tribes this year, and they're divided based on qualities that it takes to win this game. Brains. I don't know the damn thing. Beauty, brains, and brawn.
Brains, broody, brawn. I'll do that one time again just because I'm sure I messed up. I absolutely had a holy fucking shit moment. I'm hungry. Actually, the hunger was not the worst part. It was that I felt like nobody was being nice to me. Not only the people I was playing with, but I felt like the crew hated me.
You know, like when you walk into the cafeteria and you sit at a table and you just feel like people are just barely fucking tolerating you? No, no, no. Flat side. Yep, like that. As a black woman in engineering, I've been at that table a lot.
She has the decisiveness of a leader. She has the bossiness for sure, but she doesn't exactly have it all here.
I felt kind of like a cog in the machine. It feels like the fantasy of Survivor is that you have this like pre-civilization society that magically conforms to everything you already sort of believe about society, but it naturalizes it. So it's not like producer interference. It's not sexism. It just so happens to be that, you know, young dudes dominate the game over and over and over.
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Chapter 3: What psychological effects does reality TV have on viewers?
A lot of contemporary shows around love are much more focused on relationship dynamics. 90 Day Fiance, Married at First Sight. This is a revolutionary new social experiment.
This is the first time an experiment like this has ever been done in the U.S.
Four experts intend to use scientific research to arrange three marriages. essentially what happens after people find each other, as opposed to treating marriage, for instance, as the ultimate goal or the end of the story, right? We're kind of like picking up after Cinderella and Prince Charming get married and being like, so what were the expectations like now that she was back in the castle?
Like, what happened then?
Why, it's like a dream. A wonderful dream come true.
I'm so sick of this. Go away then. Go away. Are you happy? No. The fantasy is breaking down. And to keep us hooked, reality shows about love are acknowledging more and more just how hard it is not only to find human connection, but to sustain it. Like, I really would love it if you could just kind of, like, get more into, like, a husband mentality.
Those quieter moments when people are having a conversation about, I can't believe you did, like, that's when the real slips out.
Like, what's your expectation? Do you think you're just going to build me into who you want me to be?
I view these shows as acknowledging for viewers a growing cynicism, quite frankly, around, like, traditional models and narratives around love and around relationships. Whether it's reality television or like classic Hollywood cinema, media has always been a site of fantasy projection. It's a place for us to work out our hopes, our desires, our anxieties, our fears.
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