Being someone who loves reality television, the focus for week 10 was reality television with a specific focus on shows such as The Bachelor, Unreal and Candid Camera. Reality television can best be described as “the ‘entertaining real’… ‘authentic’ personalities, situations, and narratives is considered to be reality TV’s primary distinction… and also its primary selling point” (Oulette & Murray, 2004). To summarise the show, The Bachelor is a dating reality show that pits a group of women against one another in order to win the heart of the star of the show, the bachelor. Most recently, The Bachelor has introduced its first Australian spin-off, The Bachelorette, staring the ex-fiancé of The Bachelor season 2 star Blake Garvey – Sam Frost. Each episode includes a group date, as well as a solo date where each contestant attempts to make a romantic connection and impress the bachelor/bachelorette. At the end of each episode, one suitor is eliminated from the competition by not receiving a rose; this is repeated each episode until there is only one lucky remaining contestant left and the two live ‘happily ever after’, or so is hoped by the adoring fans.
The Bachelor is a worldwide phenomenon shown across several countries with various versions of the show – the three most notable being the United States, the United Kingdom and the Australian versions. In the US, the series has had 19 seasons and various spin-offs including Bachelor Pad and Bachelor in Paradise. Drama ensues every episode, with some comedic relief as well and some extremely cringeworthy and endearing moments. The Bachelor is one of many successful dating shows and can be closely linked to MTV’s Are You The One?, as well as I Wanna Marry “Harry”. Dating shows are so successful for the fact that while they are reality television, they depict a fantasy style situation that appeals to the general audience, in particular the young female demographic. Another reason why shows such as The Bachelor and China’s infamous series If You Are The One are so popular is that they are, for the most part, ordinary people that participate – meaning that the audience can see parts of themselves as the cast that makes up the show. Ordinary people can be defined as “people who are not media professionals, experts, celebrities or newsworthy for any other reason”. These people are relatable in a sense and are “interchangeable with one another for the purposes of the programme” (Syvertsen, 2001) These reality shows, in particular The Bachelor have stereotypes that the producers and editors of the show feed into. For example, there are more often than not an overly dramatic cast member, a cast member who has strong morals and a cast member who is there to ‘stir the pot’. The other stereotypes that we can see when comparing The Bachelor’s group of women vying for love versus The Bachelorette’s men that are competing are “that women are sex objects, that dating is considered a game, and that men are sex-driven” (Ferris, 2007)
A key moment from the second series of Australia’s The Bachelor that I found noteworthy was Blake Garvey’s proposal to Sam Frost, and the subsequent break-up and allegations of cheating with second runner-up Louise Pillidge. This story is so fascinating to me for the fact that it caused the biggest media storm for reality television for 2014. In a television interview following the finale of the second series, Blake and Louise sat down with Kochey and Sam from Sunrise to talk about their love for one another as well as the truth behind the proposal. Blake’s defense for going back on his engagement with Sam was that he “was not the only person in history to second guess their engagement”. Host Sam Armytage followed back with the fact that he had done it on national television to which Blake had no comment. While I do not support Blake’s actions, I do believe that the media frenzy that followed the three people in the spotlight was a little bit unwarranted, however it is what each contestant signs up for when they participate on a televised dating show.
Bibliography
Bibel, Sara (2012) ‘The Inbetweeners cancelled by MTV’ in TV By The Numbers
Chalaby, Jean K (2005) ‘Introduction’ in Transnational Television Worldwide: Towards a New Media Order
Ferris, Amber L (2007) ‘The Content of Reality Dating Shows and Viewer Perceptions of Dating’ in Journal of Communication
Liew, Kai Khiun (2011) “Transnational Television” in International Journal of Cultural Studies
Ouelette & Murray (2004) ‘Introduction’ in Reality TV: Remaking Television Culture
Perkins, Claire (2015) ‘Transnational television remakes’ in Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies
Syvertsen, Trine (2001) ‘Ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances: a study of participants in television dating games’ in Media, Culture & Society