Curious State

What does reality TV say about us? | feat. Danielle J. Lindemann

Episode Summary

The shows we refer to as guilty pleasures may be more insightful than we think. Danielle J. Lindemann, author of True Story: What Reality TV Says About Us, takes us on a journey into ourselves.

Episode Notes

The shows we refer to as guilty pleasures may be more insightful than we think. Danielle J. Lindemann, author of True Story: What Reality TV Says About Us, takes us on a journey into ourselves.

A few curiosities you’ll uncover in this episode:

Did You Know?

For the season one finale of Survivor in 2000—guess how many people tuned in. Upwards of 51 million. That’s the combined population of Georgia, Ohio, Wyoming, Vermont, Alaska, North and South Dakota, Delaware, Montana, Maine, Michigan, and Illinois.

Credits

Curious State is a Quick and Dirty Tips podcast hosted and produced by Doug Fraser.

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Podcast Manager - Adam Cecil 
Podcast and Advertising Operations Specialist - Morgan Christianson
Digital Operations Specialist - Holly Hutchings
Marketing and Publicity Assistant - Davina Tomlin
Intern - Brendan Picha 

The Quick and Dirty Tips network is a division of Macmillan Publishers in partnership with Mignon Fogarty, Inc.

Have a question? Or a topic you’d like covered on the show? Maybe you just love sending emails? Whichever shoe fits, tie it on and send me a message at curious@quickanddirtytips.com.

Episode Transcription

Doug  

A quick warning, this episode contains a bit of language! Listener discretion is advised.

That's a really pretty good picture of you there. I took it myself. You? You took it yourself? How’d you do that?

Set the camera.

Doug  

In 1973 PBS aired An American Family. It started off as a simple TV show. Over 12 episodes, viewers would get an inside look at the daily life of the Louds and upper middle class family of seven from Santa Barbara. Intimate conversations and moments never before seen on television were beamed into homes across the country. “Why don't you get out do something exciting? Because, number one, I really can’t understand how people are successful, how people work, how people drive at something, how people get ideas. I just, I don't know!”

Doug  

When producer Craig Gilbert was asked what the show is about, he said, “it's about how you and I and everyone in this room and everyone in this country is fumbling around trying to make sense out of their lives.” By the series finale, An American Family had broken new ground. Lance, one of the five children was one of the first openly gay people featured on television, and subsequently he became a celebrity and gay icon. The show also revealed relationship issues that many American families could relate to, and captured the divorce of parents Bob and Pat Loud. This was the first reality TV show. Fast forward through the decades and reality TV has gotten–how do I put it–a facelift. Today, we follow fishermen into deadly weather conditions. We took and untuck with drag queens lip synch for your life. We pop into the tent and warmer ovens for the Bake Off.

“You showed us so many skills, good piping, and I've got to know what's inside!”

Doug  

And of course we tune in to see who gets the coveted rose from The Bachelor, Katie, I accidentally called out the wrong name. But I'd like to extend to you the option of staying.

Danielle

I am first and foremost a reality TV fan ever since I was kind of a young teenager on Long Island and I first started watching The Real World. My name is Danielle Lindemann, and I'm an associate professor of sociology at Lehigh University. For the past few years, I've been teaching a course at Lehigh on the sociology of reality TV. And I always thought it would be just really neat to be able to turn that course into a book. And so I did!

Doug  

That book is called True Story: What Reality TV Says About Us. So what exactly does it say? I'm Doug Fraser. And this is Curious State. 

What makes these reality TV shows so compelling–even the ones that we claim that we don't even like?

Danielle

So on one hand, there's a kind of voyeurism reason, right? We watch the train wreck to remind ourselves that even if we might be messed up in our own ways, we're not like those people over there, right? So to watch the train wreck to remind ourselves, we are not of the train wreck. So there's that there's that kind of distancing that happens there. But then paradoxically, we're also drawn to the shows because they're kind of filled with these broad archetypes of characters that remind us of ourselves in some ways. So even if you're not exactly like the people on your screen, even if they're kind of wacky amped up versions of ourselves, usually there's sort of one character that we can kind of grab on to and say, Okay, I'm most like this person I'm most, I'm a Bethany, or I'm a Carol, right? Or I'm, I'm the Smart One. I'm the Shy One, or I'm the Pretty One, right? So it's sort of this push and pull, where we're kind of reminding ourselves, we're not like those wacky people, but at the same time, we're gravitating toward the people on the screens because they remind us of ourselves in some ways.

Doug  

There are all kinds of reality TV show categories. There's dating, home improvement, makeovers, documentary, talent search, celebrity docu-soaps, hidden camera, and of course, competitions. And things can get pretty heated. Look how orange you look, little girl, okay! Unless, of course, it's the great British baking show.

"She had sort of look that I'm going to do it and she did, sheer perfection."

Doug  

So these contestants become sort of hyper versions of themselves. What makes that happen in front of the camera?

Danielle

Yeah, so really, they become hyper versions of ourselves. Right? So they become hyper versions of, you know, our ideas about you know, how men and women should act, how families should be, how relationships should be, you know, so I think what there's kind of two answers. So like, on the individual level, what are they doing? I think at this point, you know, there's, again, there's kind of an awareness of what goes into these shows. And at this point, now you have people who are, you know, applying for these shows with an archetype in mind, right? That they're going to put in there, right, so they get the screen time, they're going to show this amped up archetype. A friend of mine actually was just telling me about this guy, he knows he was on a rally show. And he already had in his mind, he was going to be the villain with the redemption arc. And he was, like, I saw his season, he was a villain with a redemption arc. So part of it is, now is just intentional, right? People are going in, I'm going to be this amped up version of this archetype. But I think in general reality TV, again, has always kind of harnessed these archetypes going back to, you know, the original Real World, right, you have seven strangers, and each one kind of fits into a particular box. And so even if they're not consciously performing as amped up versions of themselves, there's still kind of that editing, right? That kind of puts them into that kind of archetypal category.

Doug  

Across many reality TV shows, you'll find the archetypes Daniel mentioned, you know the ones.

Danielle

Okay, so there's like the shifter. Right? So that's, you know, the character, that sort of, you know, there are two people at odds and the shifter kind of continues there. They're feuding right fuels, the fire fans, the flames, right. And I talked about how that's, you know, not just in reality TV, but that exists in life, where I look at kind of the micro dynamics of these shows and how, you know, we can look at, you know, in our workplaces, there might be that person in the school, there might be that person in our moms group, there might be that person. So again, this is another way that reality TV shows us kind of amplified form, our own kind of daily, or daily dynamics. So there's definitely these people who kind of cause drama. They're also the people who are kind of the Greek chorus of the shows, right? The people who, oftentimes we relate to again, I say, I'm a Bethany, and for a long time, on Real Housewives of New York, Bethany was that kind of voice of reason, kind of Greek chorus of the show, there was always one kind of normal person thrown in there who can kind of grab on to, um, but I think for the most part, what makes it compelling, right, is that the archetypes are different. There are people who are kind of raised in different social contexts. And what's really interesting to me as a sociologist is that this really shows the importance of social contact, in really shaping who we become, and the way we think about the world. And then we move and our social expectations and the way we behave in the world. Because then when you kind of artificially patchwork all these people together, you really are able to see their differences magnified.

Doug  

Okay, let's be real, the term “reality” is a bit of a misnomer. Reality TV passes itself off as unscripted television, when behind the scenes, there's plenty of direction, and even specific dialogue from those who are making the shows, but does it matter. Did you learn anything about whether people actually care if the show is real?

Danielle

So this wasn't my research, but there was a study that I discussed in the book that defines that believing the shows are real, enhanced enjoyment of the shows, you know, most people that I encounter, just anecdotally in my life, don't don't think these shows are 100% really real. I think at this point, you know, we have a healthy skepticism about reality TV, and I think that study was was done a few years ago. So it'd be interesting to see today, you know, kind of what percentage of people believe that reality TV is 100% reality, I would say it's probably a very low percentage, “no wonder why you cheated on your wife.” On one hand, you think of these shows as guilty pleasures are not supposed to admit that we watched them, right. But on the other hand, these shows have a sort of communal function because we socialize around the shows. And this is was especially true during the pandemic, when, you know, we weren't even together, we really had nothing else to do and a lot of the TV was reality TV. So you've had people kind of socializing remotely around the shows, you know, not only remotely you know, now as people are kind of getting back together around the water cooler in real life, people connect to others they might not otherwise connect with around the material on these shows. So it is this really interesting kind of tension, because on the one hand, like, I'm not supposed to talk about the fact that we watched like Selling Sunset or Summer House or whatever, you know, but at the same time, we're kind of drawn to people. And again, this serves this kind of communal function because we watch the shows.

Doug  

Even if reality TV isn't really real. What we see play out on screen shines a spotlight on very real aspects of our lives. You mentioned earlier about the social construct and I just wanted to reference a quote from your book, you mentioned that unscripted programming teaches us that all reality is socially constructed.

Danielle

So it's all these things that kind of structure our world that we take for granted as kind of real and true and essential, and standing the test of time, ultimately, oftentimes are built on the kind of shifting sands of culture. So what we think about as a legitimate mother, or what makes a family or what a marriage should be, or even ideas like race, class, gender, sexuality, you know, all of these things kind of are shaped by our cultural understandings into which we've been socialized. And that may sound obvious, but it's not to a lot of people. And on a daily basis, we often kind of take for granted that these things just are or they just exist, and that, you know, the things that we believe to be kind of legitimate and true and healthy and good just are, you know, but sort of reality TV probes that that a little bit, you know, and kind of points out that all of these things are really built on, you know, our cultural understandings, and we have to be socialized to understand those things.

Doug  

Did you know, the first episode of a new reality show with lots of contestants and cameras can shoot up to 150 hours of footage in a single day. And then the editors spin their yarn, stitching together the most captivating storylines, all the downtime, and then meh moments are removed. Audio and expressions are pieced together for maximum effect. And voila, you've got a one hour show of some version of reality. So what is reality TV, even in its most manufactured state, what can it teach us about the human experience?

Danielle

Sure. So one of the things that it can teach us is, you know, kind of about the horrible aspects of ourselves, right? So it shows us in kind of a heightened amped up form, our social inequalities, it shows us our racism or sexism. It shows us our classism, right? So if you look at a show, like Here Comes Honey Boo Boo, a lot of kind of classist tropes are being mobilized in that show. You look at a show like The Bachelor, you see people kind of performing gender, not only in very, like normative ways, but ways that are kind of amped up right with eyelashes out to hear and bedazzled ballgowns, and you know, makeup at like 9am. So we're all performing gender in our own kind of muted ways. But on these shows, you see these things really kind of dialed up to 11. But I always have to say, because I am ultimately an evangelist for reality TV, I just say in the end, reality TV also shows us some beautiful things about ourselves as well. It shows us how diverse we are, historically, it's kind of been more diverse than other other types of media. And yes, sometimes that results in kind of stereotypical representations. But there's still something to be said for representation. It was kind of on the vanguard of queer representation, you know, going back to The Real World, you know, even even before that, there was a kind of proto reality show an American family in the 1970s. And there was a gay son in that family. And that was kind of revolutionary for TV at the time. So it's kind of shown us kind of parts of ourselves that scripted TV has not historically shown us, it educates us, it takes us into kind of the nooks and crannies of society, you know, and we would learn, we learned things from reality TV, we wouldn't know otherwise, everything I know about drag, I've learned from RuPaul Drag Race, I wouldn't know anything about it, if it weren't for that show. So it can be, it can be a fantastic tool for education, if used correctly. There have been studies that have shown causal links between what's happening on the screen and what's happening in our lives. So there was one study by economists that showed that the show 16 and Pregnant actually had reduced teen pregnancy rates. And that shouldn't be surprising, because media scholars have long shown that the media that we consume influences how we move and think and behave in the world. You know, now reality TVs, almost half of all TV, it, more people are watching than not. So you know, it would be really unwise to believe that it's not impacting us in our culture, and kind of a large way. Don't count reality TV out. There's still a lot of people who think that it's kind of “Oh, it's just this guilty pleasure. It's this frivolous thing. Why are you wasting our time on it?” There's a reason to kind of waste our time on it. Right? There's a reason to understand what's happening in these shows that we might just think of as frivolous fun, because for one thing, they are shaping our culture in demonstrable ways. But also they show us ourselves. They show us, you know, in some ways, the best of ourselves, I think, but I think they also show us kind of the kind of ugly inequalities that still really permeate our culture and things that we might want to change about ourselves. Even if you don't care about reality TV, you know, I think that's something that's important and can be applied to other forms of media and our own daily life experiences.

Doug  

For the season one finale of Survivor back in 2000, guess how many people tuned in? Upwards of 51 million. That's the combined population of Georgia, Ohio, Wyoming, Vermont, Alaska, North and South Dakota, Delaware, Montana, Maine, Michigan, and Illinois. Over two decades later, reality TV dominates the airwaves and streaming services. On these shows. We see people from different backgrounds come together, and at times, they clash in a glorious spectacle, glamorizing vulgarity and brash decision making the made-for-TV versions of everyday people, and dammit if it's not entertaining, as well as eye opening. As cameras roll on the good, the bad, and the downright uncomfortable, highlighting our own learned behaviors, tilted worldviews, and the gray nuanced areas where much of life unfolds, as Danielle writes in her book, once we peer into the face of that ambiguity, we're better able to see the unstable social fictions that more broadly dominate our lives. I guess Fact or Fiction, reality TV is just stories. And stories are what we're made of.

“Dearest Lance, thank you for your wonderful letter. I thoroughly enjoyed it is also reassuring that your concern to an extent with the marital problems of your problem-plagued parents. It is even more rewarding however to know that at times in your and my relationship that you did feel close to me, and that you did consider me a father friend, and that you have brought happiness and cheer to everyone that you meet, and that you go through life with that charming, gay, fascinating personality and with style.

Doug  

If you'd like to check out Danielle’s book True Story: What Reality TV Says About Us, you can find it in both written and audio form wherever books are sold. If you have any questions, comments or ideas for future episodes, email me at curious at quick and dirty tips.com. If you prefer talking over typing, leave me a voicemail at 757-541-8471. For more information about the show and where you can find this across the internet, check out our show notes or visit quick and dirty tips.com. Special thanks to the quick and dirty tips team. Adam Cecil, our audience development and podcast manager, Morgan Christiansen, podcast and advertising Operations Specialist, Holly Hutchings, our digital Operations Specialist, Davina Tomlin, marketing and publicity assistant and our trusty intern, Brendon Picha. Curious State is hosted and produced by me, Doug Fraser for the quick and dirty tips network, which is a division of Macmillan publishers in partnership with Mignon Fogarty Inc. Until next time, stay curious.