For my initiative post, I have decided to reflect on a television series I watched for one of my other courses, Television Cultures. The scripted series, UnREAL, focuses on the behind the scenes of the production of dating reality TV shows, such as the Bachelor. After watching the first episode in class, I was astonished at how dramatic and ‘crazy’ they made the producers, directors and other crew out to be. Like the title says, it almost seems too “unreal” to be true. In the first episode alone, it shows the main character (a producer) manipulating the cast of the show to make the episode more interesting. For instance, in order to create their villain on the show, the producer takes a note of her troubled past and uses that to fire her up and cause a scene. It shows how scripted reality television can be and leads us to question what is real and what is fake.

Although events are exaggerated in the show to make narrative sense, UnREAL gives the audience a look into the behind the scenes of media producing in all of its glory. For a viewer like myself who is studying media, it is extremely interesting to note how reality television producing is quite different from scripted film producing. When you think of reality television, you ultimately have the impression that the show is unscripted, in fact in most cases you expect it to be. But in recent years, many of our favourite shows have been called out as being scripted. MasterChef, although casting authentic Australians to be on their show, sets up from the beginning who is to be eliminated, especially if the contestants break their contracts. Love Island Australia has come under fire as research on the contestants has shown that most of them are actors or actresses. Even the show Catfish, which focuses on the hosts catching people who have lied about their identities online, appears to be scripted by the producers who cast people to be the ‘catfish’ and then not tell the hosts so the hunt to find them is authentic.

Upon seeing UnReal, I was also able to reflect on media producing as being quite a difficult career path. Although it is different in a film sense, seeing the casted producers in the show being directed to manipulate in order to get better footage made me almost uncomfortable. The contestants became puppets and stereotypes for the crew to take advantage of in order to get ratings. In the show, the producers are even offered a cash prize to whoever could create their next ‘villain,’ and the main character claims she can make or break the male ‘bachelor’ on the show. Although this could be heavily dramatized, the pressure on producers to create quality content would be extreme. I have never been drawn to film or television producing but seeing how difficult and draining this job could have definitely allowed me to rule it out as a career option. However, with that being said, I also have more respect for screen producers who are under this type of pressure and do their absolute best to entertain us as an audience.