Reality TV shows are popping up on just about every channel now. Whether you are sitting down to watch last night’s episode that you recorded or just channel flipping, you are bound to find a reality show on some network at just about any time.
The thrill of watching a show that could change at any moment gives viewers suspense to hold onto, constantly wondering what might happen next. But what if I told you the participants in the shows happen to know what they’ll be doing next because a producer told them what to do? Kind of ruins the fun doesn’t it?
The fact of the matter is this is the case in majority of the reality shows out there. According to The Washington Post, writers who disguise themselves under the names of “story editors” or “segment producers” are shaping reality stories. What these people will do is take splices of video and alter the course of events until they develop a story that ends up being totally different than what actually happened.
Daniel Petrie Jr., president of the Writers Guild of America-West said in an interview with The Washington Post that writers would often put characters into “fish-out-of-water” situations in hopes to evoke the most anticipation as possible. Reality shows are not actually written out but rather scripted in order to create structure, situation, and character. This method used for crafting reality shows is known as “soft scripting.”
Brad Gyori, a Film and Media Studies instructor at ASU said soft scripting is a way of organizing the events in the show, having a set schedule of how things should pan out, and having quite a few very detailed deeds.
“I think more and more [reality shows] are soft scripted because it’s cheaper to produce. The amount of time, effort, and tape, is less. You don’t have to tape someone 24 hours a day and hire a crew to follow someone around,” he said.
Not everyone is pleased with the way reality shows are portrayed.
Ray Richmond, a longtime television critic for the Hollywood Reporter, who now blogs about entertainment and pop culture, said in an interview with MSNBC that he’s been trying to have reality television renamed to be called “partially scripted television.” But, as it turns out, his efforts have been unsuccessful.
Sure, viewers are tuning in for their fix of reality TV, but in turn they’re receiving a fixed version of reality. Unfortunately, viewers don’t seem to care whether the shows they are watching are real or not and production networks continue to pull in the ratings and money. Until then, it looks as though we’ll keep on being deceived.
Bring Monique back to reality at monique.zatcoff@asu.edu
