Love it or hate it, reality TV remains one of the most popular genres to grace our screens. But despite the name, these programmes aren’t always known for their objectivity – often leaving us captivated by false narratives and struggling to differentiate fact from fiction.
With more than 40% of 25–34 year olds regularly tuning into some form of reality show in the UK, this genre is clearly here to stay. From rags to riches stories and tales of romance to talent contests and survival races, how does reality TV influence our lives, shape our expectations and change our perspectives?
Our panelists from both sides of the camera explored the dark and the light of these often controversial shows. Are they ethical, how far is too far, and who are the real heroes and villains among it all?
Panellists: Pandora Sykes, Dr Charlotte Armitage, Rylan, Jazz Boatswain, and Prof. Tim Wilson.
Top Takeaways
- “People are cast to be a stereotype – everyone is a stereotype of something – it’s a production”. Our panel discussed the highs and lows of reality TV, mental health and why they took part in reality TV.
- “Previously there wasn’t enough duty of care. We’re at a point now where it’s really tight in terms of of duty of care and we need to come a little bit back in the middle” – Dr Charlotte Armitage
- “I grew up in the early noughties and reality TV and I always knew that’s what’s I wanted to do when I grew up.” – Rylan
- “I thought I was mentally robust, but it was so crazy watching criticisms of me on a mass scale and it was hard to process” – Jazz Boatswain
- “The Circle was an acting job for me. Reality TV exists in the shadowlands where nobody talks about what’s going on – I thought I was old enough and resilient enough to deal with the fame” – Professor Tim Wilson
- “Every single person is a stereotype, I played that stereotype and I played up to it.” – Rylan
- “Now as a host, I tell the contestants – just remember; unless you say or do it, we can’t show it” – Rylan
- “I loved the show but the manipulation afterwards was unbelievable for about 18 months. You lose a sense of who you are and you’re incredibly dependent on the people you’ve worked with from the show, I felt it very difficult to get back to reality” – Professor Tim Wilson
- “If you want to go on TV, you have to find that authentic you. If you don’t know who you are, I don’t know if you can be on reality TV” – Professor Tim Wilson
- “How tense it looks on TV, it was ten times more tense in real life” – Jazz Boatswain
- “Social media is a vile and brutal world. Social media is an interpersonal disconnection. It’s antisocial media. It’s ruining society, it’s ruining people People rely on it and it’s lazy.” – Dr Charlotte Armitage
Related Books:
A Game of Lies – Clare Mackintosh
They say the camera never lies. But on this show, you can’t trust anything you see.
Seven reality show contestants arrive in the Welsh mountains to compete for a life-changing prize, not realising what they’re truly signing up for.
Each stranger has a secret – and the show will force them to expose one another live on air. It’s not long before things take an even darker turn, and Detective Ffion Morgan is summoned to untangle the truth behind the scenes. And when a murderer strikes, every one of Ffion’s suspects has an alibi . . . and a secret worth killing for.
Available here
Reality Bites Back: The Troubling Truth About Guilty Pleasure TV – Jennifer Pozner
Nearly every night on every major network, unscripted” (but carefully crafted) reality” TV shows routinely glorify retrograde stereotypes that most people would assume got left behind 35 years ago. In Reality Bites Back, media critic Jennifer L. Pozner aims a critical, analytical lens at a trend most people dismiss as harmless fluff. She deconstructs reality TV’s twisted fairytales to demonstrate that far from being simple guilty pleasures,” these programs are actually guilty of fomenting gender-war ideology and significantly affecting the intellectual and political development of this generation’s young viewers. She lays out the cultural biases promoted by reality TV about gender, race, class, sexuality, and consumerism, and explores how those biases shape and reflect our cultural perceptions of who we are, what we’re valued for, and what we should view as our place” in society. Smart and informative, Reality Bites Back arms readers with the tools they need to understand and challenge the stereotypes reality TV reinforces and, ultimately, to demand accountability from the corporations responsible for this contemporary cultural attack on three decades of feminist progress.
Available here
Related podcasts:
Unreal: A Critical History of Reality TV – BBC Radio 4
The dumbest genre in entertainment, or the one that tells us the most about ourselves? Since its conception, reality TV has divided its viewers.
Unreal: A Critical History of Reality TV is a 10-part audio documentary written and presented by journalists Pandora Sykes and Sirin Kale. They’ve been fans of reality TV since they first watched Big Brother as pre-teens and they’ve spent a fair amount of time defending reality TV when people are snobby about it, or dismiss its importance in our wider culture. But they’ve also been troubled by what they’ve seen in the genre: the exploitation; the lack of aftercare; the impacts of sudden fame.
Using interviews with the creators, producers and stars of some of the most iconic reality shows of the last two decades, and leading cultural critics of today, Unreal explores how reality TV has shaped entertainment, fashion, beauty, celebrity and even politics – and some of the ethical issues raised by the format.
Available here
Edge of Reality: The Story TV’s Too Scared to Tell – Jacques Peretti
In July 1997, the first contestant voted off the first episode of the first ever reality TV elimination show took his own life.
Expedition Robinson was the first show of its kind anywhere, and it was going to be remembered not for breaking the mold of television, but for a death, the first of at least 40 suicides linked globally to a reality TV show.
In this powerful series, journalist Jacques Peretti charts the meteoric rise of reality TV from the early days of Survivor and The Contender through to The Bachelor, Married At First Sight, The Circle and Love Island.
For the first time TV Insiders reveal the lengths the industry is willing to go to to make the most sensational viewing possible, and the collateral damage that followed. The damaged lives of the everyday people who sold their souls to entertain us. And throughout, we talk to – or try to talk to – the people pulling the strings behind the scenes.
Available here
Further help:
- What Is The Impact of Reality Shows On the Younger Generation?
- The Power of Aftercare
- Young Minds – Body Image
- Mental Health Foundation – we are more than what we look like
- The Case For Taking Reality TV Seriously
Watch:
