Must-read expose of reality TV contracts

Huh? It was an easy read!

 

I appreciate your permission to enjoy watching it, but if you can't see the difference between something like Amazing Race and Keeping Up With the Kardashians, I can't help you.

 

I was thinking of Silent Library instead.

 

I bet none of those guys looked like that before the show...

 

You're comparing a burger from McDonald's to one from Burger King. Two different flavors of the same crap. It's fine if you like it but insinuating they're widely different is a bit off the mark.

Using a different analogy, there's a chasm of a difference between People magazine and The Lord Of The Rings books. Sure, you can argue that People magazine is better than The Inquirer but they're both crap. One might be worse than the other but it's still crap.

Maybe I'm in the minority but I like substance in my entertainment.

 

There still is such a show: UnReal just started it's 3rd season. I thought it was pretty over-the-top, but after reading the article from this thread, now I'm thinking it's pretty close. A lot closer to reality than any of the reality TV shows.

 

we are living in reality tv. ugh.

 

That's eminently true. I worked with a young woman some years ago who had done a stint on "Fear Factor". She found the invasive psychiatric prodding and manipulation the most demeaning part of the show. She also said she and the other contestants essentially signed away any real hope of getting compensation of any kind from the producers if she decided to sue or found she had been injured, physically or otherwise. She wasn't interested in pursuing any kind of legal action at all, but the contestants were essentially threatened repeatedly with extreme reprisals if they in any way broke contract or wanted to pursue action against the production company or its employees.

And I agree with many of you that reality shows are one of the most wretched developments in pop culture in decades.

 

Well, I dislike the themes/premise of those shows.

 

Peter X. Kelly a local Westchester chef was on Iron Chef a few years ago vs. Bobby Flay and wrote a pretty in depth piece on the experience. I'll see if I can find it. Spoiler...he won and yes Flay was an a$$.

 

I haven't read the article, but I'm a little surprised this is news. I've been aware since the second season of The Real World of reality TV's reputation for manufacturing drama by being manipulative and abusive toward participants, while editing to create a particular narrative which doesn't necessarily match events as they happened.

I think this stuff is bad for us as individuals, and bad for us as a culture, because the model is practically Orwellian. Consciously constructed, manipulative programming billed as "reality." Think about that for a minute.

And don't come back with "but I like it." Some people like cocaine, but that doesn't excuse its excessive, destructive nature.

 

Caveat viewer.

 

The extensive psychological testing is obviously not for the benefit of the contestants, but to provide tools to further manipulate them. Any psychiatrist or psychologist involved with one of these shows is very likely violating their own code of professional ethics.

Edit to add this quote from the article:

You gather with some of the other contestants in a nondescript meeting room at The Doubletree Hotel in Culver City and you all complete a two-hour-long personality psych test reminiscent of the somewhat outdated Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI). The test is analyzed by a computer while you wait and the results are then given to a psychiatrist who meets with each potential contestant. You do not get to see the results. It seemed to me that the point of the test is to judge what dramatic traits each person has that could be harvested later for a plot twist.

 

Yes, while masquerading as safeguards for the safety of those who want to appear on the show. The producers get it both ways: they get to claim they are working to maintain a safe environment while employing psychiatric professionals who further their own aims of provoking and manipulating contestants into more "dramatic" on-camera behaviors.

 

Exactly... and caveat contestant. It’s hard to believe that this obscure article from a loser in a reality competition who claims to have written for real journalistic entities but has no hesitation in publishing an article that doesn’t make the slightest effort to present arguments from the show’s producers, who violated the spirit, if not the letter of the competition by neglecting to sign the non-disclosure agreements and then wrote a viciously one-sided rant about her experiences (and does anyone believe this article would exist if she’d been more successful) has generated several pages of support here.

Reality shows exist because people want to watch them and because there is no end to the supply of starry eyed dreamers who want to be noticed and who think they may have found the end of the rainbow. If the “psychological manipulation” is so painful, then they can quit... but of course then no one would notice them and they’d never find the end of the rainbow.

And the extensive testing has much more to do with the litigious nature of our society than any desire to manipulate the contestants who are practically crying to be manipulated when they apply, as anyone can see when they watch the various audition videos they send in.

So if the whole genre is so distasteful as so many posters here have claimed, do the same thing the contestants can do... quit paying attention to it. (but then no one would hear you complain.)

 

I've done the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory when I was young, and have some idea of how it could be abused the hands of someone with a compromised ethical system (like say, a reality TV producer.)

 

And yet sometimes the 'reality' gets a little too real for a few of these shows. The one about the gun shop whose owner is currently in jail for molesting his co-star daughter! I was always found American Chopper 'watchable' as the drama didn't feel fake. The fates of Teutals has been completely tied to the show. And they're coming back! Although I very rarely watch any type of these shows, I'll be watching AC, as they seem to have fixed the causes of the drama, which I believe helped get them cancelled, so it'll be interesting to see how long it lasts this time!

 

Yeah, screw those people! If they can't be bothered to have the combined skills of a squad of psychologists, a platoon of publicists and an entire battalion of lawyers, well...I guess that's their own fault!

 

Nothing wrong with liking only what you like! It’s not so much the theme or premise that draws me in- it’s the storytelling / writing that keeps me hooked.

 

It's the manipulation of human beings to fit a predetermined narrative that apalls me. In the article, the writer describes one of her fellow contestants who killed himself. If their psychological evaluation hadn't been so self-serving they might have warned his parents and gotten him some help.

 

wish that wasnt on Salon, as I'm not going to disable my ad blockers, for them, or anybody.

We watch Chopped, ever seen that? I've often wondered if that was scripted or the winners fixed.... I've seen one or two seasons of Project Runway, the first two I think are on Netflix. My daughter loves it. Is that one scripted or fixed?

 

I'm on Android and used the free AdBlock browser and it worked fine.

I think we can assume any "reality" show is about as fair as any carnival midway game.

 

I love reality shows such as Moon Machines, Wonderland, and Grey Gardens. I think they're called documentaries.

 

My wife and I have watched a lot of Chopped. Since each episode stands alone, there wouldn't be as much reason for the producers to fix the outcome. But based on how frequently the contestants tell a sob story of some kind*, I'm certain that the producers encourage them to do so. And a savvy contestant would know that making the producers happy can't hurt their chances.

* The lengths to which they'll go to come up with one led my wife and I to coin the satirical example: "My neighbor has spina bifida."

I'd bet a week's paycheck that Project Runway is completely fixed. The judges will usually have a "pet" among the contestants and praise even their most hideous work to the skies.

 

O' OK...never saw that one.