An appreciation for The Valleys: On Hypertext in reality tv consumption

Goodness me, the break has been a blur of interning, rehearsing, tutoring and eating marvellous creations. I’m struggling to reckon with uni work a touch, thus see the lack of blog entries on networked media.

Unfortunately I have chosen to fill my recreational hours with watching the mtv reality show ‘The Valleys’ instead of engaging with the readings, however I feel the show could possibly tap into some ideas about Hypertext.

I feel like viewers use tv shows like these for gratifications specific to their reception contexts. For example, after interning all day and endeavouring to be a professional, articulate, David Lawrence wearing woman one needs a release in crappy tv shows depicting people unafraid of living up to professional or civilised standards. Since I am not one of these select few, I can treat the show as a form of escapist entertainment from hostile concepts such as ‘media liason’, ‘journalists’ and ‘business appropriate’.

Now, I’m not sure this is what the producers of the show intended. If you asked the Family First candidate in my local ultra conservative electorate, they would say the show’s raison detre (I dont think thats correct but excuse my french) lies in it’s glorification of crass behaviour and stupidity and I’d actually deign to agree with them here. The Valleys depicts the worst kind of reality tv monstars, Lateysha who thinks she’s Beyonce, Jenna who has a law degree however also a boob job and an aspiring ‘glamor model’ careeer, Leeroy an aspiring rapper recently charged with assaulting the mother of his 1 year old (glossed over on the show) etc…. It actually makes me thank god that the reality tv medium actually exists for these people, who would be out of place in almost every other environment they might encounter in life.

Anyways, my reasons for consuming the show are at odds with its original purpose. I don’t condone a lot of the behaviour and treatment of the cast members by the show itself (the exploitative ‘glamor’ shoots err on the side of pornography), but I do watch it and wish I was in an environment  free like them from the manacles of common sense and decency. Everyone does! The point is that we stay as voyeurs of this sort of thing, not the reality tv show’s subjects. This can lead to fame and your own onesie line, however not the respect of your audience really, who like you for your dancing monkeyness and scripted one liners about ‘tashing on’ (hooking up-Geordie Shore) ‘tampin’ (being annoyed-The Valleys) and ‘smushing’ (intercourse-Jersey Shore).

Thus, I am using the show for my own gratifications specific to the fact that I’m over being smart for the day and need something to soothingly lobotomise me for 40 mins or so. I’m sure Stephanie Meyer intended her novels as tour d’forces of literature, however I disagreed… yet read them cover to cover when I was stressed about Year 12. The night before I got my VCE results, I bunkered in and watched 10 hours of Jersey Shore to the point where I woke up in the morning and had not a care in the world about ATARs, for perhaps one day I could make money off being unintentionally hilarious.

For the love of god, no one hunkers down with their loved one on a Friday night to consume a Lars Von Triery/Gus Van Santy exploration of the pits of the human soul, none look too a 4 hour play featuring a man stripping down and painting himself red centimetres away from you when you are in the grips of glandular fever and don’t know where you are (this has happened to me) and finally who gets stick into some Bronte if it is in fact nice outside and you are going out with a non socially challenged Rochester.

Consumption of Trash Culture is actually a highly active and participatory process of cultural reappropriation, which just screams Hypertext to me.