Reality TV and Gender

Reality television, the "crack cocaine of programming", promises that their viewers will get unscripted, and unabashed access to the participant's lives (Lauzen, 445 and Brancato, 49). Reality television made up 60% of Fox's prime time programming in 2004 and with the recent writer's strike (and subsequent cancellation of many scripted shows) more reality shows have popped up to fill in the blanks while needed because they are relatively cheap (Lauzen, 445). Even though reality television is questionable most of the time, it is a mirror that is pointing itself back at society, reflecting many of our beliefs about things we have internalized long ago-gender being one of them.

Reality television often casts in stereotypes so that their audience can easily recognize them but these stereotypes often reflect conservative stereotypes of "what men and women should act like, look like, and expect from each other (Lauzen, 447). Common stereotypes are "the antagonizer who is 'not here to make friends'....the naïve waif, who's searching for 'Prince Charming'; the slut who plots to 'take our connection to the next level'; and the wretched weeper who wonders, when dumped, 'What's so wrong with me that someone cannot love me' (Pozner, 16)." These stereotypes often are what lead us to believe in the good/bad girl dichotomy that can cause extreme internal conflict within young women.

Lets look at Reality Dating Programs, which can range from awkward blind dates to competing for a proposal. To get an idea of how fast the genre has flourished, in1997 there were three reality dating shows and in 2004 there was over 30 (Zurbriggen , 02). MTV has a wide array of shows that they target at girls that are still in middle school and it is through these shows that our youth is starting to learn about sexuality and sexual norms (Manganis, 02).

A research project was done on three hundred and forty three, eighteen to twenty-four year old college students and how various aspects of their life correlated with how many reality dating shows they consumed (Zurbriggen, 11). Surprisingly, males reported to watch the dating shows more than females but both sexes enjoyed the shows about the same (Zurbriggen, 13). However, they were many differences among how the shows influenced each sex.

Males had "higher scores for adversarial sexual beliefs, sexual double standards and the importance of appearance in dating (Zurbriggen, 13)." Women, on the other hand, were more likely to believe that the reality show plots and characters are unscripted, seemed to be more affected by the exposure to the highly sexualized charge of the dating shows, and had a correlation between the hours of television watched and an above average sexual appetite (Zurbriggen, 13).

Yet, both genders believed that if you watched dating shows for actual dating advice that you were less likely to have participated in intercourse (Zurbriggen, 14). Also, an "acceptance of recreational sexual intercourse, endorsement of dysfunctional beliefs about relationships and endorsement (by girls) of the importance of appearance,.. endorsement of the beliefs that men are sex driven and that dating is a game and that women are sex objects..." are very common themes that are weaved from many hours of editing into reality dating shows (Zurbriggen, 14).

The other types of reality shows that affect women revolve strictly around the family. Supernanny, Nanny 911, Trading Spouses and Wife Swap all "reveal contemporary American socioeconomic anxieties and simplify complex political issues as they rectify a historically conservative definition of women's roles in the domestic sphere (Brancato, 49)." Many people have boycotted these shows saying that they are misrepresenting women by bringing back traditional gender roles from the fifties (Brancato, 49).

Also, sociological factors like race, class, health, etc are barely ever mentioned in these shows-they are the giant elephant in the room that no one wants to discuss but everyone knows it exists (Brancato, 50).

Wife Swap and Trading Spouses are two very similar shows where they take two women away from their husbands and children and have them switch families for a couple months. The entire basis of the show is set up on women being traded (the husband never gets swapped-he just has to put up with a women who is socially as different from his wife as possible), gender roles, and individual opinion and beliefs (Brancato, 51).

The women who are swapped are usually from a different class, region, or race so there is a varied opinion on the gendered roles but if a woman is to extreme it is not uncommon for her temporary "husband" to tell her that her place is in the home (Brancato, 52). The women who follow the more "traditional" woman role often "exaggerates differences between men and women"; the "modern" role is seen as more equal and "differences are not emphasized (Brancato,52)." Basically, swapping spouses is such a big hit because it allows us to watch the conflicting roles for women battle against the families, each other and, in the end, the women usually come to some sort of compromise with their what they believe their gendered role should be (Brancato, 52). This justifies stereotypes that women are just confused and create their own internal battle of how they should act.

The other family related shows, Supernanny and Nanny 911, both involve parents who have "out-of-control" children. Again, women are "hyper symbolized" because the mother is expected to be the major caretaker of the children and the father is rarely expected to change quite as much as the mother (Brancato, 51). Yet, the families seem to have the same problems every episode, "communication is minimal between husband and wife, children lack consistent discipline and attention, and violence" is very common (Brancato, 53). These problems seem to reflect the rapidly changing structure of family in America's society.

Another genre that got was huge in the mid-2000's was reality television based on receiving plastic surgery to be seen as more beautiful or even to look like their favorite celebrity. The Swan and Extreme Makeover both gave numerous (mostly relatively younger) women, on average, six different surgeries (Green, 24). The shows received backlash because Feminists called it misogynist, and Plastic Surgeons accused the show of "glossing over the seriousness of the surgeries (Green, 25)." However, the surgeries were made to look like they were done in one day, and were extremely easy to recover from which is not the case and many people believe that the increase in plastic surgeries could be because of this genre of reality television making plastic surgery seem easier, less painful, and a minor inconvenience on your way into becoming a beautiful swan (Green, 24).

Yet, it is important to add, that not only are females open to the dangers of reality television. There is a genre of reality television out there that is particularly targeting males and those would be Jackass, Viva La Bam and Wildboys; usually they consist of "a large group of young, ostensibly heterosexual men carry out a range of acts that are typically masochistic (Neumeier, 00)." However, the acts they carry out are extremely violent, dangerous to their body and equates masculinity with "the willingness to risk the body in performance (Neumeier, 00)." Yet, it is not uncommon for many people to blow these shows off and say "boys will be boys" but they are potentially as, if not more, dangerous than the other genres of reality television.

The National Institute of Mental Health, in 1994, came to the conclusion that children developed their gender roles according to what they watched on TV (Witt, 01). On television, regardless of if it was reality or scripted, these were the norm: males were more dominant in male-female interaction, men are seen as more "rational, ambitious, smart, competitive, powerful, stable, violent, and tolerant" and women are "sensitive, romantic, attractive, happy, warm, sociable, peaceful, fair, submissive, and timid," men should be able to perform well, be skillful and strong while women are expected to be "attractive and desirable" and marriage is seen as not being as important to males as it is to females (Witt, 01). Females are expected to compromise for the males and allow them to have dominance.

There seems to be a theme that men are judged on a more rounded scale-they can be smart, athletic, attractive, or various other things. However, people seem to think (and reality television justifies there belief) that if a woman is not seen as being stereotypically attractive then she is "removed from the dating pool all together (Seltzer, 24). If she is not beautiful it seems people believe she is not worth anyone's time, respect or attention.

Unfortunately, women of color are fairly exclusive in reality television and they are often kicked off the show within the first three or four episodes. Also, the treatment of some of these women is appalling. On The Swan, they got rid of an Asian girls monolidded eyelids and reduced the size of an African-American girl's lips (Andrejevic, 175). It should have been seen as a slap in the face to every African-American and Asian-American but it barely caused an uproar and most people overlooked it (Andrejevic, 176). Not only, are reality television shows racist and sexist but I believe that they are also extremely ageist. On most reality television shows the women are under the age of 35 and are thin, and attractive (Witt, 02).

Reality television justifies the same prejudices that every citizen of America faces on a daily basis. Yet, we still are not discussing the sociological impact of television and the majority of people still watch it blindly. So much for reality if it is leaving many of it's viewers faceless and non-existent.

Essentially, no one can blame the actual shows for being completely degrading since all the contestants are willing participants. However, I believe that it is evident that these shows could give skewed perceptions of sexuality, beauty and unhealthy gender beliefs to the youth of America and that it is despicable that networks are releasing so many of these shows because they are cost-efficient. Potentially, this could be very damaging to the naïve minds of our children, especially young females.

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