Reality TV Group Work -- Sabrina, Charlotte, Andrea, Kallan, Rojeen

We looked a few clips from America's Next Top Model and had the following connections to the readings and comments: 

“We Were Rooting For You” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6Shpn5WCFs 

• The expectation of/demand for suffering 

• Bruce & Random 1 → spectacle of suffering

• “I’m sick of crying about stuff I can’t change” 

• Don’t be a victim (victimhood is a choice, and Tyra chose not to be a victim)

• Neoliberal responsibility & self-governance/management → you can achieve it/win the show if you want it badly enough

• “If you were sick of being disappointed, you would stand up, and you would take control of your destiny.”

• “Liberal ideal of governing at a distance” (McCarthy, 25) 

• Reality TV producers as governing and managing shows at a distance; unseen and rarely acknowledged (except for extreme cases; a recent episode of the Bachelor having a contestant apologize for behavior without acknowledging the show’s responsibility as editors; ethics of authorial responsibility)

• How much are you volunteering image/experience of suffering vs. what the producers are prodding for and expecting 

Black Face & ANTM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bugKNY9pTQY&t=556s

• White & non-Black cast members can “perform” race → connections between models on ANTM and drag queen performances on RPDR

• “While gender can be subverted, inverted, or reified, race must follow a protocol of ‘realness’” (Strings & Bui, 823)

• "Those drag performances viewed as successful (and ironically most subversive) are those where stereotypes are deployed" (Strings & Bui, 825)

• Quote about wanting girls to look in the mirror and see a different shade of skin and think “this is beautiful”

Haircut ANTM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7D76dqaSflc  (3:30)

• Public spectacle of suffering

• “It seems to me that it’s impossible to talk about trauma’s place in reality television without talking about torture and violation. This is in part because the genre’s historical roots are intertwined with the experimental forms of torture enacted in the name of research by social scientists such as Stanley Milgram,” (McCarthy 30). 

• Lines around how voluntarily contestants are subjected to this suffering; they sign up to be on this show, but are possibly pressured into extremities like this

• Viewers sympathizing with the woman whose hair is getting cut, but also encouraging it through watching the show