“Reinas unidas jamás serán vencidas”: Drag queens in the Iberian Spanish voice-over of RuPaul’s Drag Race

RuPaul’s Drag Race (2009 – present) is an American reality television programme launched by RuPaul Charles, which has turned drag queens into a mainstream phenomenon. After briefly analysing the controversial figure of the drag queen in the light of Judith Butler’s performative turn, as well as drag lingo following Keith Harvey’s framework for identifying camp talk, this research aims at investigating the European Spanish voice-over of Seasons 8 (2016), 9 (2017) and 10 (2018). This work seeks primarily to analyse the choices that are made in the target text to characterise drag queens in the localised European Spanish version available on Netflix. The translation procedures mentioned in this study are partly adapted from Ranzato’s (2015) classification for culture-specific references. The analysis focuses mainly on the creative rendering of (semi-)homophony, drag terms, references to pop culture and grammatical gender.

Contributions of Reality TV Consumption to College Women’s Endorsement of the Heterosexual Script and Acceptance of Sexualized Aggression

A prominent feature of mainstream television, especially reality programming, is a heterosexual script that outlines women’s and men’s traditional courtship roles. Although frequent media use is believed to produce greater acceptance of this script, existing analyses have not fully delineated contributions of scripted versus reality programming or tested these notions using a holistic heterosexual script scale. We addressed these limitations in two studies. In Study 1, 466 undergraduate women indicated their support of the heterosexual script and their consumption of popular reality programs, sitcoms, and dramas. Heavier viewing of reality programming predicted greater support for the heterosexual script, and heavier viewing of sitcoms predicted weaker support. In Study 2, we used longitudinal data to explore relations between viewing reality television, acceptance of the heterosexual script, and acceptance of sexualized aggression during undergraduate women’s first 2 years in college ( N = 244). We found that reality television consumption was not a direct predictor of acceptance of sexualized aggression but was a significant, indirect predictor through endorsement of the heterosexual script. These studies contribute to our understanding of unique media contributions to endorsement of the heterosexual script and illuminate one process by which women may come to normalize sexual mistreatment. Campus educational programming on sexuality, sexual assault, and healthy relationships may be able to intervene in this normalization through critique of the heterosexual script and media portrayals of dating and relationships.

Documentary reality television's privacy problem

<p>Documentary reality television is hugely successful. The genre, which includes shows like Police Ten 7, Coastwatch and Border Patrol, consistently outperforms other television formats and fills free-to-air television schedules. In these shows ride-along film crews and body-worn cameras record agencies as they go about their tasks. Often these agencies are public authorities and their tasks are statutory functions. The purpose of this paper is to examine the genre’s privacy implications. It concludes that the genre is systemically unlawful. It is unlawful because it breaches the privacy rights of involuntary participants. The paper considers the privacy implications by examining the genre against the shared features of the publication tort and the Privacy Broadcasting Standard. Both of these consider that it is a breach of privacy to broadcast material subject to a reasonable expectation of privacy, where that broadcast is highly offensive unless there is an applicable defence. While the material broadcast represents the work of agencies, it also represents the personal stories of everyday people going about their lives. Often the moments captured are significant life events and intimate moments for those people. By agreeing to contribute to the genre, agencies agree to broadcast these life events without the active involvement of the participants. Research has also found that this is often occurring without informed consent. While the focus of this paper is on the private law implications of the genre, it identifies that some public authorities’ involvement in the genre may also be ultra vires. The paper finishes by considering why, if the genre is systemically unlawful, people are not suing. It considers that general issues with access to civil justice and the powers of the Broadcasting Standards Authority stand in the way of potential complainants. It finishes by considering some solutions that could improve the situation.</p>

Documentary reality television's privacy problem

<p>Documentary reality television is hugely successful. The genre, which includes shows like Police Ten 7, Coastwatch and Border Patrol, consistently outperforms other television formats and fills free-to-air television schedules. In these shows ride-along film crews and body-worn cameras record agencies as they go about their tasks. Often these agencies are public authorities and their tasks are statutory functions. The purpose of this paper is to examine the genre’s privacy implications. It concludes that the genre is systemically unlawful. It is unlawful because it breaches the privacy rights of involuntary participants. The paper considers the privacy implications by examining the genre against the shared features of the publication tort and the Privacy Broadcasting Standard. Both of these consider that it is a breach of privacy to broadcast material subject to a reasonable expectation of privacy, where that broadcast is highly offensive unless there is an applicable defence. While the material broadcast represents the work of agencies, it also represents the personal stories of everyday people going about their lives. Often the moments captured are significant life events and intimate moments for those people. By agreeing to contribute to the genre, agencies agree to broadcast these life events without the active involvement of the participants. Research has also found that this is often occurring without informed consent. While the focus of this paper is on the private law implications of the genre, it identifies that some public authorities’ involvement in the genre may also be ultra vires. The paper finishes by considering why, if the genre is systemically unlawful, people are not suing. It considers that general issues with access to civil justice and the powers of the Broadcasting Standards Authority stand in the way of potential complainants. It finishes by considering some solutions that could improve the situation.</p>

Farmer Wants a (Swedish) Wife

In this article we discuss discourses of white mobility in reality television, a genre whose problematic post-racial and neoliberal discourses have long been exposed. Moving beyond the widely researched Anglophone media landscapes, we interrogate the discursive construction of white mobilities in the Swedish romance reality show Bonde Söker Fru – Jorden Runt (TV4, 2019–2020) [Farmer Seeks Wife – Around the World] where Swedish North-to-South migrants working as farmers abroad seek a partner from Sweden through the assistance of reality TV. By focusing on the discursive and visual strategies through which the show perpetuates racial hierarchies, we discuss the colonial imaginaries, the absence of border policies (such as residency, employment, or integration), and the significance of individual migratory preferences in the mobility discourses. We identify three forms of white mobility – the tourist, the adventurer, and the philanthropist – and show that migration is depicted as something reversible, an adventure, and a possibility for self-development, rather than a life-long decision with high stakes.

“Get Your Teeth Fixed Before You Go on TV”: Online Discussions of Reality Television as the Hegemonic Gaze Pointed at Socially Unacceptable “Others”

The article is engaged with the question of how viewers of Czech reality television programmes negotiate the social status of low-income participants in online discussions. The analysis is triggered by an enquiry into practices of stigmatisation and the processes of drawing, maintaining, and shifting boundaries between the normalised, well-ordered “self” and the poverty-stricken, socially unacceptable “other”. The public judgement of people lacking economic and cultural capital is analysed using Internet and social network debates related to the Czech adaptations of the reality TV programmes Výměna manželek (Wife Swap, TV Nova, 2005-present) and Prostřeno (Come Dine with Me, TV Prima, 2010-present). This method provides insight into the creation of consensual meaning, and allows the analysis of the positions, claims and arguments adopted by online discussants. The research outcome showed some important differences between the evaluations offered by the producers of programmes and those accepted by viewers.

Seeking ghosts

This chapter examines the use of audiovisual and other indexical technology to capture evidence of supernatural phenomena in ghost-hunting reality television shows like Most Haunted, Ghost Hunters, and Paranormal State, among many others. It explores these programs’ connections with early practices such as spirit photography and phantasmagoria. The chapter also examines the ways in which the shows invite interaction with viewers through web forum discussions and live broadcasts. At the basis of this investigation is the question of how photography and film are seen to reveal hidden aspects of the material world and our expectations about the evidential power of images.

Reel Cops: Exploring the Representation of Policing on Police Ten 7

<p>Cop shows have been a perennial on prime time television for the past fifty years. Over the past two decades, however, the increasing popularity of reality television means that it is now competing for ascendency with traditional police-centered “soap operas”. For example, at the time of writing a search of the television scheduling by genre on TVNZ on demand reveals 92 reality television programmes compared to 65 dramas, 36 comedies and 22 news programmes. New Zealand, despite its limited production capacity has also cashed in on reality television with recent New Zealand offerings including Motorway Patrol, Illegal NZ, Drug Bust and Emergency 111. The most popular, award winning reality crime programme currently screening on New Zealand television, now in its 20th season, is Police Ten 7. The principle research question driving this thesis is: “To what extent does Police Ten 7 reflect the actual reality of contemporary policing in New Zealand?” This research question was explored through a content analysis of the entire 2010 season of Police Ten 7, consisting of 15 episodes. To assess the extent to which Police Ten 7 reflects the known realities of policing, the content analysis was broken into three main components. The first examined the demographic makeup of police. The second explored types of offences and offenders featured and the third explored the types of police activities depicted on Police Ten 7. These were then contrasted against the known realities of police, offenders and offending patterns in New Zealand. In short, the focus was on who was featured on Police Ten 7, what were they portrayed as doing and how this compares to what we actually know about crime and policing in New Zealand. The main findings were that while some aspects of policing and offending were depicted reasonably accurately, for example gender and ethnicity of police, other aspects were significantly skewed. Police Ten 7 consistently misrepresents the types of offences most commonly committed in New Zealand, over-representing traditional “street” crime such as drug and antisocial offending and violence and under-representing and even ignoring completely other common offences such as dishonesty crimes. Similarly, white individuals depicted in Police Ten 7 are much more likely to be police than offenders, while the opposite is true for non-white individuals who are also depicted more commonly as being involved in violent offending than their white counterparts. As a vehicle for the presentation of the reality of policing Police Ten 7 was found to significantly misrepresent the work undertaken by the typical police officer, over-emphasising the exciting and action-packed aspects of the job and under-emphasising the service and administrative functions of police. The conclusion reached as a result of this research is that Police Ten 7 does not in fact show audiences “a glimpse into the real working lives of New Zealand police” (TVNZ, 2011b). Instead it creates a specific, pro-police vision of policing and crime in New Zealand which features real police and offenders but as a result of the symbiotic relationship between the producers and the police combines to misrepresent the reality of both policing and offending for the majority of police and offenders.</p>

Reel Cops: Exploring the Representation of Policing on Police Ten 7

<p>Cop shows have been a perennial on prime time television for the past fifty years. Over the past two decades, however, the increasing popularity of reality television means that it is now competing for ascendency with traditional police-centered “soap operas”. For example, at the time of writing a search of the television scheduling by genre on TVNZ on demand reveals 92 reality television programmes compared to 65 dramas, 36 comedies and 22 news programmes. New Zealand, despite its limited production capacity has also cashed in on reality television with recent New Zealand offerings including Motorway Patrol, Illegal NZ, Drug Bust and Emergency 111. The most popular, award winning reality crime programme currently screening on New Zealand television, now in its 20th season, is Police Ten 7. The principle research question driving this thesis is: “To what extent does Police Ten 7 reflect the actual reality of contemporary policing in New Zealand?” This research question was explored through a content analysis of the entire 2010 season of Police Ten 7, consisting of 15 episodes. To assess the extent to which Police Ten 7 reflects the known realities of policing, the content analysis was broken into three main components. The first examined the demographic makeup of police. The second explored types of offences and offenders featured and the third explored the types of police activities depicted on Police Ten 7. These were then contrasted against the known realities of police, offenders and offending patterns in New Zealand. In short, the focus was on who was featured on Police Ten 7, what were they portrayed as doing and how this compares to what we actually know about crime and policing in New Zealand. The main findings were that while some aspects of policing and offending were depicted reasonably accurately, for example gender and ethnicity of police, other aspects were significantly skewed. Police Ten 7 consistently misrepresents the types of offences most commonly committed in New Zealand, over-representing traditional “street” crime such as drug and antisocial offending and violence and under-representing and even ignoring completely other common offences such as dishonesty crimes. Similarly, white individuals depicted in Police Ten 7 are much more likely to be police than offenders, while the opposite is true for non-white individuals who are also depicted more commonly as being involved in violent offending than their white counterparts. As a vehicle for the presentation of the reality of policing Police Ten 7 was found to significantly misrepresent the work undertaken by the typical police officer, over-emphasising the exciting and action-packed aspects of the job and under-emphasising the service and administrative functions of police. The conclusion reached as a result of this research is that Police Ten 7 does not in fact show audiences “a glimpse into the real working lives of New Zealand police” (TVNZ, 2011b). Instead it creates a specific, pro-police vision of policing and crime in New Zealand which features real police and offenders but as a result of the symbiotic relationship between the producers and the police combines to misrepresent the reality of both policing and offending for the majority of police and offenders.</p>