A MIXED BAG: NEGOTIATING CLAIMS IN MTV'S THE REAL WORLD
2001; University of Illinois Press; Volume: 53; Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
1934-6018
Autores Tópico(s)Cinema and Media Studies
ResumoAmong recent television genres, perhaps no other so clearly strains the margins authority than what has come to be termed reality TV. As a presentation nonactors in legitimately natural settings and situations working without a script, reality TV stakes its claim with viewers to regard its depictions as unadorned and spontaneous-the truthful documentation natural reality. Others challenge that presumption. In his 1994 book, Blurred Boundaries: Questions Meaning in Contemporary Culture, Bill Nichols suggests that this new blend fact and fiction spuriously perverts traditional nonfiction aims by, among other things, recreating natural events and actions (52). Yet the genre Nichols cites is difficult to define. In truth, a broad collection nouveau TV production formulae sharing a common origin in natural reality, and the distinctions he proposes between reality TV and traditional fiction and nonfiction genres, may be considerably more complex, particularly if one examines them outside conventional boundaries staging and simulation. article looks to one such television program in particular that seems to blend and blur those traditional boundaries. MTV's Real World poses predictable questions with respect to its authority: is this fact or fiction, spontaneous or constructed? By rigid definition, Real World is ostensibly real-the unscripted actions seven nonactors, who beckon the viewer to sanction their presentation unquestioningly. Yet there is abundant evidence, some from surprising sources, that the weekly half-hour is something other than unaltered natural reality. Thus questions authority plague Real though they lead to one curious fact inseparably linked to the show's contradictions. It's apparent in sources such as Internet discussion groups, newspaper columns, and news magazine articles that The Real World, critical observations aside, succeeds very well at being considered an authentic account the material world. Yet if, in the face its claims to nonfiction authority, the program indeed demonstrates its competing tendency toward construction, one must assume that something is at work here that masks for viewers the contradictions between the two, staging their negotiation through the show's minefield contradictory claims and practices. Negotiation in this instance relies to a great extent on the show's formal characteristics. Real World's manner presentation critically determines its acceptance as faithful documentation material existence. Real World seeks to reside under that big, frayed umbrella nonfiction productions that Patricia Hampl says houses a motley crew genres (77), with aspirations perfectly coinciding with other forms nonfiction production. In particular, the show points to one nonfiction genre, television news, for which an implied social and political consciousness fuels a particular production style. Being patterned after the TV journalistic style, Real World borrows on the confidence that genre provokes in its audience, and manages in the process to evoke its own mystique authenticity that, in the final analysis, furnishes viewers with the rationale to successfully negotiate the show's authorial ambiguity. Credibility Contract Real World is episodic, depicting for thirty minutes each week the struggles, challenges, and general dynamics occurring between seven cast members over a six-month period. At the end each six months, the program renews itself with a fresh crop characters and a different locale. Each weekly episode begins with the same basic entreaty that begins the Seattle series, for example. This is the true story, viewers are told, of seven people picked to live on a pier, work together, have their lives taped. Find out what happens when people stop being polite and start getting real (The Real 16 June). Unlike other nonfiction modalities, even other reality TV genres, Real World's bold claims and walking an admittedly fine line reject the universe natural order. …
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