Reality TV
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Brother! with Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting o f Hill House. In the conclusion of
his essay, he writes:
Freytag’s Triangle, a hterary plot guide, can be used not only as a
help to writers of books, but also to producers of reahty shows such as
Big Brother 2. Life is much like a novel; the fact that a real-life situation
follows so closely to a novel written over forty years ago says a lot about
the vahdity of hterature as being a near-reahty story in itself.
Karyn chose to compare The Real World to the fairy tale genre:
In the show seven young adults are plucked from their ordinary
worlds, many of which are less than desirable to begin with, and placed
into a dream world. Living in a beautiful house, presented with an
interesting job, living on a fake, provided income, and basically living
just a perfect life with the one consequence of having it taped, is the only
responsibility of the casts’ members.
The series resembles a fairy tale in that in the beginning everything
is strange to the characters. The characters then pass through a quest or
conflict in which they must win, despite the obstacles. Sometimes they
become ill. All of the conflicts gradually resolve, and by the end, everyone
lives happily, or at least, we are led to believe they hve “happily ever
after.”
Karyn chose to answer the question I posed as a postscript to the
assignment: “Is there any redeeming value in the reahty television program
you wrote about? All of the students answered adamantly, “No.” However,
Karen added,
I see nothing wrong with my view. I enjoy shows that are less than
enlightening. But I do not think a reahty television show has to be
considered great TV or that it has to be socially beneficial.
A student named Liesl does not see much of a redeeming quality about the
reahty show Temptation Island', nevertheless, she also enjoys watching this type
of reahty television program:
However, I do not see this as a decision as to whether it is something
the pubhc viewing audience should or should not watch, because if one
hkes this type of entertainment then one should feel free to sit back and