The Paradox of Reality Television Fame - Page 3

Reality television supposedly "changes everything." Or, so I've been told in all of the special features sections of the variety of reality television DVDs I own. Most of the talk of this supposed revolution in reality television essentially revolves around the breaking down of this very fame archetype I'm discussing. Where fame used to be reserved for idealized personae, it's quickly moving down to the proverbial "normal people" — for better or worse.

All of this may be somewhat true, but I believe this is a flawed premise in terms of the real transformation that has been brought about. Reality television has very little to do with individual personae. Reality television exploits situations. So, while it may be somewhat interesting how individuals are positioned in this new format, it is now far less relevant in terms of how viewers intermingle the structure of television with the structure of their own lives — which still occurs at the same accelerated degree as always.

It's as if we've run out of new archetypes of people to fashion within famed individuals. We have a model for everything we care about in that arena, and thus are now fixated — in the same fashion — on situations. Furthermore, like the famed individuals previously the center of popular culture, these situations are quickly being bastardized by idealization and exclusion.

Anyone who has even a cursory knowledge of how business is run knows that the situations in The Apprentice, while founded somewhat in reality, are at best laughably irrelevant and at worst precariously erroneous. The same goes for, say, the therapeutic processes used in Starting Over. While there are certainly many subtle ways a therapist goes about helping abused and psychologically damaged women, something tells me exhibiting said problems on national television is not generally taught in medical school.

Interestingly enough, the individuals in these shows are often acting a lot more pragmatically than their fictional "fame archetype" counterparts. This is a lot of the reason why, excepting for a very rare few examples, these individuals are rarely famous — using the definition of being inserted into a pre-existing, idealized archetype — for very long. One could actually argue, never at all. The circumstance, however, is famous.

Article Author: Christopher J Falvey

Christopher J Falvey is the author of THE VN/VO at http://www.vnvo.com

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