Musings on the Realities of Reality

    I found the cultural interests of our readings this week rather engaging. It’s a big part of where my own research interests lie, and I’ve been curious to see some of Ellen Seiter’s work on audience studies since I knew she was faculty here. I personally am very invested in the application of anthropological methods to media studies as I believe the crossover of cultural studies between the two have a lot of potential. I have a degree in cultural anthropology and have always been fascinated by the effect and intersection of visual media on societies.

There is so much I could wax on about both Ellen and Henry Jenkin’s work, but for now I want to examine a fascinating cultural interaction I recently watched taking place on reality TV. In light especially of last week’s concept of “the mall as television” (which one could also restate as “life/culture as television”) and the discussions we’ve had about women’s relationship to televisual narrative.

    I don’t watch a lot of reality TV as it is an oxymoron, and I’m not really the kind of person who hungers for fabricated interpersonal drama.

    But. I do know a little bit about French culture. And when I saw a trailer for an upcoming Love Trip: Paris dating show, where American women were set up with French suitors, I knew I had to watch the ultimate culture clash that was about to go down.

    I was surprised however by several things. I had expected the Americans to be at a disadvantage due to ignorance. I had swallowed some of the return stereotypes Europe directs at the US: Americans as brash and stupid. I’ve witnessed some embarrassing proofs a few times myself. However it was the French ignorance that was at the heart of the central dramas to the show, and rather than being a fun way to self-deprecate a little, the show quickly became sad.

    French love lives are very quick and very serious once started. They do not date much and when they say they are looking for a love connection they mean it and they mean it for forever.

Americans by contrast are a little more laissez-faire (ironically) about the concept. For Americans, “love” is impossible to predetermine, it is a happenstance of fate. Yes, these American girls are here for “love” but they don’t really know how it will look. They expect to “just know” when it hits them. American look for a “spark,” for coupe de foudre, again ironic.

    But the French make their relationships happen. They determinedly pursue romance like their name is Ishmael and if they catch someone, they defend their claim on them with extreme prejudice.

    I was not prepared for the level of jealousy and defensive aggression all of the French, different creeds, colors and genders aside, displayed within a single one-on-one date with one of the Americans. Or to witness the level of heartache and confusion the French went through when their American paramours would hang out with someone else alone, a French signal that the two hanging are serious about each other.

    Fight after fight ensued with confused French lovers accusing their American others of infidelity and undecidedness, which the Americans then took as red flag levels of sudden, inexplicable jealousy.

    It was as of the French didn’t know how reality competition dating shows worked. I sat there beginning to wonder if anyone had ever gathered the French and explained American dating to them, or the concept of an elimination dating show.

    It is a fundamental issue. A quick search to Google shows that there are almost no French dating style shows and those that do exist have the same level of seriousness as the French do in Love Trip.

    And knowing all this it begs the question of audience. Who is supposed to be watching this? It certainly isn’t the French. They would be screaming at their screens for the Americans’ behavior. So really this show is aimed at Americans. The Bachelorette audiences who love a good dramatic turn.

    The show banks on an American obsession with exoticism and the perceived eroticism of the foreign. It hopes no one realizes that Paris being the city of love is a bit more Romeo and Juliet than Casanova.

    And so we see some of the manipulation involved with “women’s television.” As so many of our authors have reflected on in the past few weeks, women’s relationship with television narrative is a continuum, and highly interlocutive, and I believe that women-targeted reality shows are perhaps aware of this more than most, and as such structures itself in an almost conversational, water-cooler gossip kind of way to draw in its loyal viewers.

    Much as Henry Jenkins muses on when it comes to Star Trek fandom, reality (tv), like the mall, creates a subcultural community around itself. Specifically with reality it is hard to discern the chicken and egg order: did reality TV cause the popular fandom, or did popular fandom create today’s reality empire? I think there is a reasonable argument for something more simultaneous, a co-creation of both product and the culture around it.

    This point may seem obvious, but when we consider the intent of the ethnography, it might be worth recognizing the significance and validity of a subculture that grows organically from an aspect of culture that has up to now been largely dismissed as a symptom of society and not necessarily a maker of it.