Reality TV - Week Eleven

How does Hill define reality TV?

Hill (2005, p.42) defines ‘Reality TV’ stating that “perhaps the most traditional industry term for Reality TV is factual entertainment.” Yet he goes onto note that there are also six different categories which reality TV can fall under. Perhaps one example which Hill’s points out was ‘The Ship’ (a documentary of Captain Cook sailing around the North-East Coast of Australia). Between the documentary’s use of ‘fly on the wall’ filming style and use of “ordinary people as part of the experiment” Hill (2005, p.42) as well as BBC commissioning it to be ‘History and Education’, “made it difficult to categorise as specialist documentary,” Hill (2005, p.108).

The six categories dubbed, “documentaries and contemporary factual; specialist factual; current affairs and investigations; arts and culture; life skills; and new media,” Hills (2005, p.42) all fall under the main category ‘Reality TV’. This helps us to define exactly what the ‘new genre status’ actually is according to the BBC
Yet in the USA it is a different story again. Reality TV in this instance is coined as something slightly different and according to Hill (2005, p.44) “reality TV in the USA primarily refers to the type of formatted popular factual that has dominated primetime network schedules since 2000.” Contemporary reality game shows and talent shows are just two examples of reality TV in the USA.

Overall Hill (2005, p.55) sums this ups nicely by stating that “there is no one definition of reality programming, but many, competing definitions of what has come to be called the reality genre. This is because the reality genre is made of a number of distinctive and historically based television genres, such as lifestyle, or documentary.”

How has the documentary genre influenced reality TV and how it presents the ‘real’?

One of the main influences on Reality TV would definitely have to be the documentary genre. Documentary was coined as “the creative treatment of actuality” by John Grierson himself (1898-1972).

Some of the similarities which appear to be in both Reality TV and Documentaries are the use of fly on the wall filming technique as mentioned afore, valued intimacy, immediacy, the ‘real’ and the edginess of spontaneity. Also one other similarity which was pointed out in this week’s PowerPoint (slide 7) noted that “by entering the frame the filmmaker avoided the pretence of objectivity, thus creating a more equal or truthful relationship with the subject.”

This was one of French Documentary style filming traditions. It can also be reflected in some of the modern day Reality TV programmes which we watch. Take ‘NZ Next Top Model’ for example. While my sister was watching it the other night I noticed how the girls had a time where they could go to talk to their ‘visual diary’. It meant that there was no one in the room but themselves so they could let down their walls and just be themselves. Nothing was interfering with them as the object and they had no one to impress. This showed the real characters traits and personality and like (Ouellette and Murray, 2004) suggest the “use of hand held cameras or lack of narration is reminiscent of the documentary style - a form which claims to “provide direct access to the experience of the observed subject”.

Another interesting aspect which Ouellette and Murray pointed out was “research has found deep suspicion on the part of viewers towards the ‘real’ nature of behaviour captured in reality shows and docusoaps. Viewers overwhelmingly believe that people overact for the camera, and part of the appeal of the reality TV experience is revealing the concealed ‘true self’ or ‘real face ‘of a contestant.” And by using this time where the ‘object’ can escape from all that is surrounding them into a place where they can reveal the ‘real face ‘of the contestant via the video diary makes for so called good ‘reality TV’ but it is also a feature that is similar from Doco style television.

Other factors of reality TV which are also obvious in Documentary Style television are: voiceovers to construct narrative over observational shooting, subjects as ordinary culture/ordinary people (although often poetically staged), interweaving of different stories in soap opera style – cliff-hangers, the list goes on.

Reference List

Biressi, A. & Nunn, N. (2005). Real Lives, documentary approaches. In Reality TV: realism and revelation. (pp. 35-58) London: Wallflower.

Hill, A. (2005) The reality genre. In A. Hill, Reality TV: Audiences and Popular Factual Television. (pp. 14 – 40). Oxon: Routledge.