Distorted Reality
Today people have constant entertainment at their fingertips, which means people can escape into the virtual world anytime, anywhere. In many ways the virtual world can seem infinitely more exciting than the world around us and occasionally lead to confusion regarding reality. The devices used for such content contain information from the current news and politics, as well as the virtual content creating an interconnecting web between fictitious lives and what is real. This is something television show producers exploit in order to popularize their shows. In addition, many resources for watching television shows on demand, like Netflix or Amazon, require a subscription, which means one must have disposable income to spend
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Shameless is the perfect example of a class catered television show available to stream on Netflix.
When content is class catered it is also very much race catered. This can largely be attributed to the systematic oppression of minority groups in the United States, which keeps many of them trapped in the low class. Due to the predominantly white viewership, Shameless focuses on the story of a white family rather than a minority family. The predominant viewers are thus better able to empathize with the characters. Empathy is extremely important in the success of a series because without it the viewer has no investment in the characters and in turn lacks interest in the story. According to an article in Life Science by Charles Choi, studies have proven that empathy for others is innate, but lack of empathy for other races is learned and often common across populations. This may explain why in Season 3 of Shameless when Veronica, one of the few African American characters, is struggling with the fact that she can not have kids of her own, the story is more focused on Fiona, a white character, being upset over her boyfriend wanting to go back to medical school. Fiona’s situation is fairly trivial in comparison