TV Cultures: Blog Post #4 – Reality TV – Transformation Narratives
Reality TV is the double-edged sword of 21st century broadcast television. It’s often criticized for exploiting and humiliating individuals, relentlessly pushing commercial objectives and presenting misleading constructions of proposed “realities”.
But reality TV is also indubitably popular, and an inexpensive format that has kept afloat an ailing broadcast industry that can’t afford to produce the plethora of fictional content that once reigned supreme. Proving most popular (and profitable) of late is the transformation narrative.
With roots in documentary-style TV, transformation narratives evidence drastic changes to the lifestyles of “real life” individuals. We see people supposedly becoming healthier (The Biggest Loser), more beautiful (Extreme Makeover), environmentally conscious (Eco House Challenge), famous (The Voice) – the list goes on.
These shows address the modern practice of identity-making (Jagose 2003), and improving oneself through a process of learning, adapting, and ‘improving’. Often, these transformations are underpinned by commercial imperatives and product placements, alerting viewers “to the existence of more products and services for their utility in the endless project of the self” (Bonner 2003). The proposed ideals are often endorsed by an ‘everyday expert’ who serves as the guiding voice for the transformation. And overall the programs advocate “responsible self-government” and promote normative models of the “good citizen” (Rose 1989) by constructing character arcs that draw on personal stories to educate and influence audiences (Lewis 2009).
World’s Strictest Parents is a particularly notable example of the transformation narrative. It carries particular pedagogical and ideological lessons for the viewer about behavioural ideals in teenagers and disciplinary approaches to parenting. Originally produced by the BBC, it has reaped the benefits of the transnational television format trade and been adapted to American, Australian, Danish, German and Polish versions.
The show follows a particular formula to demonstrate the transformation of its central characters from rebellious teens to respectful young adults.
In one particular episode of the show’s Australian version, we’re introduced to the two Australian teenagers, with rock and roll and hip hop music setting the scene for rebellion. The voiceover introduces us to “party girl Thea” as shaky hand-held camera footage shows her drunkenly running amok in her hometown and yelling in her mother’s face that she is a “lousy mum”. As her mother’s voice expresses concern over her daughter, we see footage of Thea crossing train tracks – invoking connotations of a kid (literally) from ‘the wrong side of the tracks’. Similar conventions are used to introduce Corey, with voiceover anecdotes telling of his drug overdose as we see visuals of him moping around his hometown, using low-angle shots to emphasise his bad attitude as he snarls down at the camera.
The show then uses a variety of techniques to contrast the kids’ lives in Australia with the strict, hard-line lifestyles of their new American setting. When we first see Laval (the American dad whose custody the teenagers are in throughout the episode), he and his family are still and stony-faced, filmed in sweeping low-angle shots to represent their steadfast, militant attitude towards parenting and family life. Their hard-line approach is reinforced by non-diegetic military drum music as Laval addresses the kids, and tells them they’re “representing their country”. This reinforces the nationalistic ideals that are often perpetrated through transformation narratives, and their culturally specific values.
Fast editing is used to rapidly connect the long list of rules described by the school principle, enhancing the sense of overwhelming order and structure the kids face in their new environment. Each of these techniques are intended to contrast the ideals of the central characters, dramatizing their differences and the conflict that ensues.
An integral shift in Thea and Corey’s attitudes comes when they read letters from their mothers. The show shifts between the kids’ and the parents’ voiceover readings of the letters, to reiterate their reconciliation. Slow piano music and visual fade ins/outs emphasise the emotional and social transformation the kids are undergoing, while voiceovers drive the plot by articulating internalised transformations of their attitudes that have resulted from their time abroad.
The many references in these voiceovers to being “a better person” reiterate the ideological objectives of the show, in advocating manners, perspective and understanding amongst youth.
Although the show doesn’t necessarily carry many commercial objectives, its particular styles of editing, modes of address, narrative organisation and use of music certainly advocate lifestyle choices that perpetuate ideals of parenting, social behaviour and national identity.
Bonner, FJ 2003, Ordinary Television: Analyzing Popular TV, Sage, London
Jagose, A 2003 ‘The Invention of Lifestyle’ in Interpreting Everyday Culture, ed. Martin, F. Bloomsbury Academic
Lewis, T 2009 ‘TV Transformations: Revealing the Makeover’
Rose, N 1989 ‘Governing the Soul: The Shaping of the Private Self”, London, Routledge