For my class last week, we had to read two articles on reality television. One was written by Beverley Skeggs and goes over the different types of reality television shows that can be created, and the other article presents the show called Frontier House and uses it as an example for different ideas.
The first article talks about how shame and guilt play into alot of the roles of reality television. The new television show Undercover Boss is a great example of this. For instance, the CEO of Hooters goes undercover to one of the Hooters restaurants in his company. He does this strictly to see what things he can improve on for himself and for his million of workers, but the employees of this very restaurant are clueless that their "God" is standing right beside them. The way shame and guilt are tied in is within this very episode. The owner of the very shop he visits makes his Hooter Gilrs do ridiculous tasks everyday before they leave, but justice is served as the unfortunate fool's actions are displayed to America.
The second article is about the show Frontier House. It pits people into 1900's settings and forces them to live without everyday needs of our current 21st century society. Some of these common things that they are deprived of are electricity and frozen food. The author of the article goes into a discussion of reality television versus documentaries. The author said a reality television show is more concerned with social actors than actual real life scenarios. So how real is reality television? According to our author, not very much at all. Some scenarios are set up, some are played out by whoever is being recorded, but some are true blue scenes of everyday Americans.
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