Reality TV

Hey guys,

Great presentation last week - I’ve been meaning to blog, but just haven’t got around to it.

One of the things I find most striking (and disturbing) about reality television in Australia is its racial homogeneity and hetronormativity – I can distinctly remember last years season of Australian Big Brother was particularly bad. All the males on the show were unabashedly misogynistic and homophobic – I was actually surprised that they aired some of the stuff they did.

Towards the end of the season a transsexual was introduced to the house for a couple of days. The show focused exclusively on her gender and sexuality, ignoring all other aspects of her personality – effectively reducing her to a freak-show. The produces were essentially encouraging audiences to join in with the housemates as they watch in scopophilic disgust, reinforcing the idea that to be a moral, helthty, normal Australian one must completely hetronormative, and comply to a strict, rigid model of gender and sexuality

I think that one way of looking at reality television is as a kind of moral police force, It patrols the borders of dominant discourse and (re)articulates archetypes of gender, sexuality and race. Audiences can collectively reinforce their own sense of normality and community by voting of anyone who doesn’t comply. If someone is not an Anglo-Australian heterosexual they don’t stand much chance on any of Australia’s reality game shows. Its sad.

See you all tomorrow

Jon