Reality TV Group #4_Max, Ann, Daniel, Ursula, Sebastian

 “In this respect, the program rewrites the history of the privatization of social insurance as, in essence, an opportunity for middle-class liberals to experience ecstatic therapeutic growth.” (McCarthy, 32)

Spectators are encouraged to identify not only with the expert (arriving to take over control) but also the hapless subject from “reality” (unable to appropriately dress, cook, maintain one’s home, or be socially “successful). The absence of clear guidelines from this process is not incidental but reproduces the predicament of increasingly precarious viewerships in early 21st century US life. As the possibility for disciplining one’s self, in any of the relevant spheres (financial, aesthetic, culinary) recedes, the fantasy of relinquishing one’s responsibility to self-discipline to experts from without gains new credence. What this dual identification masks, is the dangerous assumption that, using Ouellette and Hay’s words, “democracy [is] something that always will produce the same benefit - do the same good everywhere” (205). There is a tension between the fantasy that construes failure to effectively self-discipline as aberrational (and therefore deserving of the arrival of experts) and the implicit location on a stable, egalitarian capitalist playing field in which boot-strapping is not only possible but required. 

Clips!

- We mostly talked about the identification in Queer Eyes where we jump between the identification of the subject receiving the make-over and the Fab Fives who do the make-over. This can be experienced in almost every episode when the Fab Fives are watching their subject on TV, and when the subject is entering their house.

- Identification in Hell’s Kitchen

Corey and Christina hate each other - 35:11-36:31 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vfw24oQrGgk&list=PLW5iCJIwM9Z_igyoBwKXRypSHMfaVOMjT&index=3

Corey and Christina love each other - 33:31-33:37 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aSGFLjmaaA&list=PLW5iCJIwM9Z_igyoBwKXRypSHMfaVOMjT&index=14

-Identifying with Gordon Ramsay even though most of us have probably never cooked with any of these items (divers scallops, caviar, quail eggs, etc.) - 11:12-12:35

-Identifying with the contestant (Matt) - his confusion at Ramsay’s cruel response -12:35-12:41 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16H_kiQaMTY&list=PLW5iCJIwM9Z_igyoBwKXRypSHMfaVOMjT&index=2