Contention with Reality TV Show: Should Reality TV Educate as Much as Entertain: Case Study the X-Factor

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin N. Abwanzo
Keyword(s):  
2016 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-103 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joanna McIntyre

Transgender is a marginalised category to which reality TV has given visibility, yet it is usually overlooked in observations regarding the minority groups that have gained mainstream representation through these programmes. Popular Australian reality TV shows have provided a unique space for the constructive representation of certain queer subjectivities. The Australian reality TV contestants in question present gendering that embraces ambiguity, that is, they demonstrate the deliberate disruption and blurring of gender/sex category divisions. This article examines the ways in which Australian reality TV’s representations of transgender contestants remain robustly queer while also being negotiated and made palatable for ‘family’ television audiences. It asserts the reality TV shows that feature transgender performance orchestrate a balance between queer expression and its containment. This article also takes as a case study a particularly successful Australian transgender reality TV contestant, Courtney Act. It argues Act’s representation of queerness was ‘managed’ within the normative framework of mainstream television yet she is still significantly troubled by gender binaries during her time on Australian screen. In 2014, she appeared as a contestant on the United States’ queer-themed reality TV show RuPaul’s Drag Race and again proved to be a reality TV success. This transnational intersection of transgender performance signalled the productive possibilities of international cross-pollination in regard to affirmative reality TV representations of marginalised subjectivities. At the same time, however, it also revealed the localised nature of reality TV, even in those shows with an international queer appeal.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erika Junhui Yi

The popular Japanese anime Tiger & Bunny has become a topic of discussion in media reports because of its eye-catching product placement approach. This paper is a case study on this superhero anime in order to demonstrate that the convergence in media is a process both top-down corporate-driven and bottom-up consumer-driven. The unique feature of this anime is the integration of product placement with the story itself. The sponsors in real life place their product logos onto the hero suits of the superheroes in the anime, whom are celebrity superheroes of a reality TV show in the story universe. Therefore, in the story world of this anime, characters are dealing with a highly commercialized media convergence themselves.This research illustrates the change in audience attitude and their reflections on such commercialization within and outside of the story world. The data unfolds the changing relationship between audience and producers and the influence of participatory culture on the media production, especially in the realm of audience's sense making towards the product placement within the show.


2021 ◽  
pp. 152747642110272
Author(s):  
Altman Yuzhu Peng

This article provides a feminist analysis of Chinese reality TV, using the recent makeover show— You Are So Beautiful (你怎么这么好看) as a case study. I argue that the notion of gender essentialism is highlighted in the production of You Are So Beautiful, which distances the Chinese show from its original American format— Queer Eye. This phenomenon is indicative of how existing gender power relations influence the production of popular cultural texts in post-reform China, where capitalism and authoritarianism weave a tangled web. The outcomes of the research articulate the interplay between post-socialist gender politics and reality TV production in the Chinese context.


2020 ◽  
Vol 73 (3) ◽  
pp. 497-520
Author(s):  
Nicola Pozza

AbstractNumerous studies have dealt with the process of globalization and its various cultural products. Three such cultural products illustrate this process: Vikas Swarup’s novel Q and A (2005), the TV quiz show Kaun banega crorepati? (Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?), and Danny Boyle’s film Slumdog Millionaire (2008). The novel, the TV show and the film have so far been studied separately. Juxtaposing and comparing Q and A, Kaun banega crorepati, and Slumdog Millionaire provides an effective means to shed light on the dialogic and interactive nature of the process of globalization. It is argued through this case study that an analysis of their place of production, language and content, helps clarify the derivative concepts of “glocalization” and “grobalization” with regard to the way(s) contemporary cultural products respond to globalization.


Author(s):  
Janice Ross

This chapter explores rehearsals, asking what they represent practically and philosophically and when does practice in rehearsals yield to the finished product of a dance ready for public viewing. It considers the hours of labor, failure, and interruption that constitute life in the rehearsal studio as the dancer is shaped by the choreographer and rehearsal director. Rehearsals are considered in contrast to the rules of inviolability protecting a finished performance. Using Ballet 422 by Justin Peck as a case study and examples from reality TV and films to paintings, rehearsal rooms are explored as places of hidden preparation, visual pleasure, and the imaginary as well as fascination for audiences. Ballet dancers are taught to survey themselves through mirrors, the eyes of rehearsal directors, video cameras, and iPhones as ever-expanding systems of surveillance. Although ballet dancers spend the majority of their professional lives in rehearsals, the nature of what goes on in the rehearsal studio has too rarely been the focus of dance studies scholarship.


SURG Journal ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 5-14
Author(s):  
Sarah McGuire

This article uses key terms and concepts from Television Studies to “close read” the reality TV show Duck Dynasty in its visual form. This article questions not only how Duck Dynasty represents rednecks, but also how the representation of the “redneck” is understood by the TV audience. It explores the success of Duck Dynasty as a reality TV show and argues that it redeems “rednecks” from Hollywood’s previous portrayals of the overly caricatured redneck stereotype. The Robertsons have the ability to convey truth – even if it is through a partially fake/mediated realm – and what they actually represent is a more subdued, modern form of redneck identity in comparison to classic Hollywood depictions. However, viewers cannot trust reality TV to wholly or singularly inform how they understand other social groups despite how “real” reality may appear on reality TV shows. Instead of viewing the redneck jokes and portrayal on reality TV as offensive, Duck Dynasty’s jokes and portrayals can be powerful tools for exposing the absurdity of the stereotypes previously perpetuated by Hollywood and can help subvert them. Keywords: Duck Dynasty; Duck Commander; Buck Commander; Robertson; redneck (representations of); reality TV; television studies; hillbilly; Southern culture; stereotypes; sitcom; American dream; American television


2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Buck

Historically, drag is a taboo which has been marginalized in the face of centuries of repression against non-heteronormative activity. Yet today drag has become highly visible in popular culture, and this is in large part attributable to the international success of American reality TV show RuPaul’s Drag Race (2009-present). Its bold representation of drag on a mainstream television show is unprecedented and the selection of drag queen competitors by the show’s producers has demonstrated a plethora of representations as Drag Race showcases a diverse range of identifications from the world of drag performance. The blossoming of Drag Race’s success comes at a historical moment in which we are seeing a huge proliferation of queer representations (re)produced in US television and other media over the last decade. However, as I will argue, the apparent liberalization of drag queens in popular culture is not simply a celebration of so-called ‘progress’ in the recognition of the marginalized, but may also be prompting the promotion of other value changes within late capitalism’s ideals of consumerism and entrepreneurship. Contestants are increasingly pressured to construct their drag performances to conform to a recognizable brand to reach the heights of their own private ‘success’. Mainstreamed depictions of queer subjects are susceptible to co-option, particularly in televisual forms such as Drag Race which prospers by channelling the emancipatory and subversive desires of the subculture. Through trans-textual considerations and historical contextualizations, I show how the representation of drag in Drag Race is depoliticized through neoliberal discourse as the show’s continual demand for competitors to ‘work it’ privileges and maintains the impetus for competitive profitmaking above the needs and demands of disempowered groups.


Author(s):  
Ravi Agrawal

In the year 2012, a generation ago in digital technology, the person who generated the most internet searches in India was not a cricketer or a Bollywood star. Nor was it a politician or a religious figure. None of them were close. The person most Indians were curious about that year—as measured by the total number of Google searches—was Canadian-Indian Karenjit Kaur Vohra, a.k.a. Sunny Leone, a former porn star and Penthouse Pet of the Year. It wasn’t the case only in 2012. As hundreds of millions of Indians continued to discover the internet through 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, and even 2017, Sunny Leone remained the most-searched-for person in India. People simply couldn’t get enough. (Prime Minister Narendra Modi made it to number two in 2014, the year he was elected, but Leone remained the clear favorite.) Prudish, conservative, family-values India . . . and a porn star? Leone was no longer even performing; she had stopped around 2010 and started her own production company with her husband and manager, Daniel Weber. In 2011, she came to India as a guest on the reality TV show Bigg Boss, a local version of the Big Brother franchise. Leone’s appearance was predictably controversial (by design, of course: it was good for the ratings). Although most Indians hadn’t heard of her, it didn’t take long for word to spread: “A porn star—from America—here in India?” At the time, parliamentarian Anurag Thakur complained to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, arguing that Leone’s presence on a nationally telecast program would “have a negative impact on the mindset of children.” Thakur added: “When children see these porn stars on TV and then do a Google search, it shows a vulgar site. It will have a bad impact in the long run.” There were no laws, however, to stop Leone from appearing on TV. While the production of pornography was officially illegal in India, Leone could justifiably argue she was no longer involved in the industry. She was trying to pivot to general entertainment.


Author(s):  
Xueyan Yang

AbstractThis paper presents an analysis of letters written by two fathers to their daughters in the highly acclaimed Chinese reality TV show


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