Terrace House and Japan:
In analyzing reality shows situated outside the United States, there is a shift in approach in the embracing (and subsequent reflection) of the zeitgeist. This is made evident while tracking shows created outside of the US.
For instance, the Japanese show Terrace House (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24MWwO_Gpg8), upon the surface, seems most comparable to a Big Brother-esque program. Where Terrace House defies an American audiences’ cultural expectations is their insistence on their work being steeped in authenticity, with a panel member introducing the show every episode earnestly reading off an ipad to state that indeed there is no script. Contestants - 3 men, 3 women - simply stay in a house and live their regular lives. They continue to work, go to university, or meander between the two with a small change of having a camera on themselves.
The South Korean reality TV show "The Return of Superman" also defies American cultural expectations for reality TV – namely competitions/battles. The show focuses on the positive aspects of parenting and family life, following the lives of celebrity fathers who are left to take care of their children for 48 hours while their wives are away on holiday. The fathers take on various challenges, such as cooking, cleaning, and taking care of their children's needs, which challenges traditional gender roles. With that said, one could argue that the show perpetuates gender stereotypes by framing fathers' involvement in childcare as exceptional and noteworthy – which it does inherently because it is the core premise of the show. Regardless, while the American model of reality TV atomizes and isolates the individual, the participants in the ‘Return of Superman’ are connected to a wide network of therapists, other parents, and their children. There are no moments of competition or voting out – instead, the show is centered around small moments – visits to the doctor’s office, home-cooked lunches, and other extracurricular activities – dedicated towards childcare.
In thinking of shows that actively reject Western sensibilities, while also reflecting class oppression that international audiences can relate to, only one comes to mind. The controversial Japanese reality/game show Susunu! Denpa Shōnen (Jan. 11, 1998–Sep. 29, 2002) is known for its extreme treatment of its participants, ranging from average survival situations to sadistic game makers intentionally torturing those doing well in the game. In the course of the show, participants completed around 20 challenges, but it’s best known challenge is Denpa Shōnen teki Kenshō Seikatsu (Prize Life) where comedian Nasubi was forced to live in an empty apartment with no clothes or food on just lottery and sweepstake mail-in winnings for 15 months. After winning the initial challenge, 335 days later, he was rewarded with a trip to a South Korean amusement park. After finishing, however, he was taken to another apartment and made to do the challenge all over again, but he agreed to the process as he hoped for a larger prize. In this round, the game makers kept pushing the goals until he made enough lottery money to go back home. He was blindfolded once again and put into another empty apartment where he believed he was going to have to redo the process again and willfully (in a Stockholm way) began to take off his clothes and get settled when the apartment collapsed to show a live studio audience, one he did not expect because he was informed the show was not yet broadcast.
Created in the period of the Lost Decade, the show eerily represents the next few years where salarymen were forced to find alternative forms of work due to the stagnant economy. The recession fully transformed the average person’s life with rails replacing cars as gas prices were at all time highs, creating a more isolated lifestyle. Along with this, the rise of gaming technology forced a greater class divide, as it created more government social spending with no increase in personal well being for the average Japanese person. These games also influenced entertainment further as they were much more violent and sexually explicit than previous games released, which we see with the increase and subsequent censorship of violent/extremist reality shows (which actually caused the cancellation of Sunusu!.
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