Team #1 - Julia, Brian, Sabina, Lilla, Emma on Traumatic Realities

 Clips

Fear Factor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FY_UxW22HOs (Creating trauma)

Drag Race : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=He3PicN5wnM (Exploitation of trauma on the runway, also a study into fandom culture/fan reactions to traumatic moments) 

Intro - Anna McCarthy’s “Reality Television: a Neoliberal Theater of Suffering” argues that the exploitation of trauma is integral to reality television. McCarthy states, “Indeed, the forms of violence and mutilation routinely displayed on reality television immediately spring to mind as ideal sources for such a project of witnessing. It seems to me that it’s impossible to talk about trauma’s place in reality television without talking about torture and violation” (McCarthy 30). Trauma is inherently rooted in reality, and is featured prominently in reality television as a way to advance contestant narratives and create a bond with their audiences. The ultimate incentive of reality TV shows is usually twofold, with promises of a monetary gain, or public notoriety.  The formula for success is clear, the more trauma is processed or created on air, the more likeable a character is supposed to become, and the more likely they are to benefit in some form from their appearance on the show. By providing trauma for the camera, contestants find themselves playing into the game of capitalist oppression, where one’s own suffering directly leads to a form of financial gain. Our team identified the use of trauma as operating on multiple levels within the sphere of reality TV: bringing up trauma from the past, creating trauma on-air, and the traumatic legacies of appearing in a reality TV show. 

Bringing up Trauma from the Past - Drag Race 

RuPual’s Drag Race (RPDR or Drag Race) engages with trauma on an individualized and personal level by bringing up contestants' trauma from the past. Over the course of each season, the contestants are tasked with “opening up” and confronting their “inner saboteurs”. The Runway and the Werk Room are two distinct sites of trauma exploration for Drag Race. On the Runway, the contestants have the opportunity to explain how they are feeling that week, why they are reacting so strongly to certain challenges, and get to answer direct questions from the judges. In season 5, episode 7 “RuPaul Roast” contestant Roxxxy Andrews breaks down on stage after a lip sync against Alyssa Edwards to Willow’s “Whip My Hair”. In this exchange, Roxxxy begins to cry, overwhelmed with emotions, and RuPaul probes her to share what she’s feeling. Roxxxy discusses not feeling wanted as a child and shares that her mother left her and her sister at a bus stop when she was three, using this as justification for her “strong character” and the ways she has mistreated other contestants in the competition. In later Drag Race seasons, starting around All Stars 2, the finalists must stand on the runway and give advice to a picture of their younger selves, but as many of these contestants are queer, trans, or non-binary, this is a huge violation of privacy and potentially traumatic for the queens. 

Despite RuPaul’s positioning himself as a mentor and “mother” to the show’s contestants, his exploitation of their past trauma is never truly for their own benefit and self-growth. In the Werk Room, RuPaul walks around and tries to be personal with the queens, but many of the contestants claim to have never truly developed any kind of meaningful relationship with him, and often felt used for their traumatic potential. Indeed, many queens have attested to the fact that they had to constantly reiterate their trauma on-air multiple times in front of RuPaul and the other judges, and if the contestants ever tried to speak with RuPaul one-on-one off camera, he would tell them to “save it for the cameras.” Ultimately, this kind of exploitative power imbalances created by RuPaul allow for this constant exploitation of trauma for the camera. 

Creating Trauma on air - Keeping Up With the Kardashians and Fear Factor 

Trauma itself becomes a kind of currency on reality TV: not only is trauma on-air exploited for viewership, but the contestants and “characters” experience trauma during the show and utilize it for notoriety. Their traumatic experiences become a form of self-management, “self-enterprise, self reliance” (Ouellette and Hay 224),  knowing that the most traumatic experience will be the most valued.

In Keeping Up with the Kardashians, as the Kardashian family is documented, we see their traumatic experiences play out in real-time. When Khloé’s boyfriend and the father of her child is discovered to be cheating on her with her sister’s best friend, Jordyn, we see the family find out in what we assume to be real-time, on camera. The show cuts between each family member looking at their phone in shock--”There’s a video of Tristan making out with a girl last night,” Kim says, in the middle of an interview for the show. “Oh no!” we see the producer say off-camera. Khloé’s traumatic experience is the focus on not only this episode, but on this arc of episodes during this season--we see her reaction to it, her confrontations about it, and her attempts to cope with it. Her trauma becomes the emotional currency of that season (and is transformed into the literal currency that the show’s ratings become when it airs).

Fear Factor is based entirely on creating traumatic environments and experiences for contestants, and ultimately the contestant that experiences the most trauma wins, while not overcoming this trauma and not facing your fears means losing. A significant aspect of the premise is couples competing against other couples. The show forces these couples to contend with their personal relationship (whether platonic or romantic) by equating failure or success to the strength of their bond. Shared trauma is rewarded. The most valued element of Fear Factor--both emotionally and monetarily--is trauma, as the winner receives a cash prize. The show begs the question: How committed are the participants, and even more broadly the audience, committed to capitalism? In what ways will we corrode ourselves for the sake of financial gain? From an audience/viewer standpoint, how do we judge others and can we say we would do the same? 

Legacy of Trauma from the Show - Extreme Makeover: Home Edition and America’s Next Top Model

While suffering is often monetized and exploited on reality television, appearance on these shows can in fact lead to a legacy of further trauma. As of 2020, nine families from Extreme Makeover: Home Edition have lost their homes, two of which were foreclosures. Some of these resulted from tax increases on their newly renovated homes, while others defaulted on home loans on their houses, or couldn’t keep up maintenance for the renovations, which were done cheaply and in a rushed manner. When asked for a comment, the show’s host Ty Pennington claimed that they left the families “with a financial advisor” and if they still lost their homes, “that’s their own demise” (Maglio, The Wrap). This goes to show how the ‘makeovers’ presented in EH: HE are temporary, are only for show only, and often leave families with more troubles — financial or other — than they faced before. Instead of focusing on makeovers that would provide long-term benefits to struggling families, the designers made flashy changes to the houses that looked good on camera, but were often not sustainable to the struggling families, whose plight they exploited for a sob-story.

Another example of a show with a traumatic legacy is America’s Next Top Model. ANTM at times drastically and even permanently changed their contestants’ appearance by shaving off their teeth or altering their hair texture and skin colors for photoshoots. This has led past participants to speak out about the trauma they continue to live with as a result of the show. In addition, many of the show’s models have mentioned that they struggle finding modeling work after the show ended, as the fashion industry did not have a way to market them. “[O]ur place in line at Fashion World was at the bottom,” one of the contestants said, as their stint on a reality show made it difficult for the industry to take them seriously, which is arguably the opposite of what they intended.

Conclusion 

Ultimately, the use of trauma in reality TV operates at different stages of the production process, but are all motivated by the same kinds of capitalist incentivizing. Many beloved reality TV stars suffer from this kind of exploitative behavior, and find themselves heavily scrutinized in the public eye. The world of reality TV also does not end at the show itself, and contestant trauma eventually lives on in tabloids and popular discourse, thereby leaving a legacy of trauma long after the production wraps. As McCarthy states it, “the process of helping traumatized others is [...] an opportunity for middle-class liberals to experience ecstatic therapeutic growth” (McCarthy 32)

References 

‘No one is trash, no one is garbage, no one is cancelled’: the cultural politics of trauma, recovery and rage in RuPaul’s Drag Race  - Debra Ferreday https://doi.org/10.1080/19392397.2020.1765101 

https://youtu.be/Kp0S8_ki_zc - Drag Race Finalists Address Their Younger Selves - Compilation 

Top 10 Times Drag Race Got Real - Miss Mojo https://youtu.be/ZO_Mry94hKg