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word ‘allegedly’. It blurs the boundaries between reality and fiction further still as it does not specify which scenes are ‘artificial’. One could argue that any scene involving ‘unnatural’ situations has been ‘created for entertainment purposes’ per-se. However, ‘created’ scenes could mean any additional pre-filming processes, such as staging or scripting. This boundary-blurring
profanities more than they actually did. Linked to this manipulation, misleading episodes later appeared incorporating pranks at the audience’s expense, arguably highlighting the family’s complaints that the edited portrayal is sometimes inaccurate, and emphasising how easily viewers can be duped into thinking a situation is real. In 2003 MTV produced another celebrity ‘reality’ programme – Newlyweds: Nick and Jessica, based around the married lives of ‘wholesome’ singers Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson, implementing a similar ‘truth-telling’ approach whilst editing footage out of context (recontextualise). For example, Simpson’s infamous confusion at the tuna brand name ‘Chicken of the Sea’ which endeared her to the public led to her
conscious characterisation as a stereotypical ‘dumb blonde’, with editors taking pains to incorporate similar incidents of puzzlement and ensure she had a ‘dumb moment’ at least once an episode. Along with careful editing – re-using and lengthening shots, creating montages, adding incidental music – less satisfactory reality is manipulated and a new ‘truth’ is manufactured. The popularity of these
celebrity-based shows with their exploitation of participants for comic effect eventually spawned The Simple Life, a merging of the sitcom format with that of reality entertainment, initially placing arguably ‘lazy’ socialites Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie on a farm to live and work. It followed a ‘documentary’ format with an informative voiceover; however, the narrator
54 MediaMagazine | December 2009 | english and media centre
adopted a mock-Southern accent and regularly appeared to ridicule the girls for their ineptitude. Whereas The Osbournes and Newlyweds filmed its participants’ supposed everyday lives, here, the show put its celebrity subjects in situations extremely unnatural to them and recorded how they coped… or didn’t. ‘Some scenes have been created for entertainment purposes’, a disclaimer appearing briefly at the opening credits of many US reality shows including The Simple Life, is arguably a kind of catch-all phrase that ‘covers the backs’ of the programme creators for manipulating situations. It’s a strategy familiar to audiences of shows like Have I Got News for You where the panellists prefix potentially libellous statements with the
crops up frequently when reading any media text. If a television programme, film or advertisement claims to represent ‘reality’ in any form, a mediation process has taken place between what transpired and what one sees on the screen, whether this is simple cutting room recontextualisation or the falsification many US ‘reality’ shows have been accused of. These boundaries become even more indistinct when the reality show itself has been inspired by fictitious TV drama.
(Desperate) Housewives of
New Jersey Laguna Beach: The
Real OC and The Real Housewives… are obvious examples. Observing the popularity of teen drama The OC and the Desperate Housewives saga, producers have obviously engaged with the fact that the lifestyles
portrayed are of interest to audiences, hence their production of ‘reality’ versions. The New Jersey edition of Real Housewives on Channel 4 recently focuses on the ostentatious wealth of the five women in question, and despite the documentary ‘look’ and ‘feel’ of the programme, it is set up to be viewed like a drama or soap opera. We are given teasers of what is coming up, and the opening credits present the show’s subjects as characters, posing in front of a gold background with their respective families in tow, their monikers glittering. While it supposedly
depicts real events, The Real Housewives of New Jersey embraces the conventions of a TV drama with its careful editing to incorporate mystery and tension. It introduces us to four closely linked ‘characters’, and with perfect timing, presents a fifth, the ‘outsider’ Danielle. Unlike the others she is a single divorcee with a somewhat ‘colourful’ past. She has already been befriended by one of the group, and in a camera interview the friend, Jacqueline, ‘hopes the others will accept Danielle’, Cue dramatic non-diegetic music that builds to a crescendo as the camera zooms in on a ‘concerned’ Jacqueline. What could have been a simple declaration of genuine
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