In this post I will be looking at the screening of Goggle Box during week 12 and discuss its construction and its attempt to set itself apart from other reality TV shows.
Gogglebox is a Television show about people watching television, a real gripping concept, so its easy to believe that many critiques were negative towards the notion. However once it aired it seemed to receive much praise. Obviously it has to be constructed in some kind of a way otherwise it wouldn’t be able to captivate its audience. Arguably the show captivates their audience by making something “real”. But hang on a second, isn’t that what reality TV did in the 90’s! Basically Goggle box has re-used the same premise that started the reality TV craze, which, ironically, is that “its doing something different”.
Gogglebox was originally a British television show, it first aired in 2013 and is up to its 6th season! More recently Gogglebox has come to Australia, airing its first season at the beginning of this year (2015) it is now on its second season, obviously the show is doing something right. Obviously the transnational format works, but thats nothing to stick it apart from other reality tv genres such as the Bachelor and Bachelorette, big brother, britain/australia’s got talent, all of which (in fact the genre of reality TV in general) seem have a good transnational format.
In the advertisement for the Australian Gogglebox there are words that flash up on the screen that try to distinguish the show from anything else. Unlikey, funny, compelling, heart warming and original are all words flashing up on the screen, “the TV show about people watching TV”. The advertisement also shows the people watching a few shows, interestingly enough all these shows are based in reality. Family feud is first to be watched by its audience who laugh and crack jokes about it. The news is the second thing to be shown which talks about negative effects of alcohol, where a few of Gogglebox members, the members with drinks in their hand, ridicule and make fun of the accusation. The last show is on Village Vets, this show takes a turn in the mood, picturing an animal in need, various female members tearing up watching the screen. By choosing these types of shows the advertisement is trying to prove the realness of its own show, trying to put it as a step more real than the other shows.
The first episode of season 2 displays some common reality TV tropes, a narrator recalls what the Gogglebox families have been doing since the last season ended. A couples dog died, an elderly couple got a grandchild, some got engaged, someone went to Sweden and back and daughter had a debutant ball. This has nothing to do about TV but is constructed to create a connection between the families and the potential audience. It’s peculiar to note the different shows that they watch in this episode: The Bachelorette, Worlds biggest Pets, Celebrity apprentice, The Australian Story – Malcolm Turnbull, X-Factor, Road Breath Test and Nigella Lawson. It’s is interesting to note that the only scripted, planned show they watched was Nigella’s cooking show, all the other shows are based in reality in one form or another. This might be in order to keep relevant with the reality TV craze or it might be to do with the fact that there is a lot more reality TV shows in TV. Another explanation is Gogglebox might be undermining the integrity of the “reality” in these shows in order to create its own realism.
So is the show constructed? We may never know for certain but I, for one, don’t tend to talk that much in front of a TV! In the end Gogglebox uses its common looking various families commenting on other reality TV shows in order to distance itself from the negative connotations of that genre even though, when you analyse it closely, it is still doing the same thing, looking at drama in the everyday lives of “ordinary” people.
References:
IMDb, Gogglebox (TV series 2013-), viewed 27 October 2015, <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2762330/?ref_=nv_sr_1>
youtube, Gogglebox Australia: First look, viewed 27 October 2015, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZZt1NT14tk>
GoggleBox 2015, Television Series, 2, Ten Network, 1 October.