Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
How reality shows affect society
Reality television shows impact society
How reality shows affect society
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: How reality shows affect society
In the article: “Toddlers in Tiaras” the writer, Skip Hollandsworth, brings about different topics debating wether pageants for little girls has a negative or a positive effect in their lives. The exigency he uses, is the story of JonBenet Ramsey who was brutally murdered after she had been kidnapped at a pageant in 1996. His purpose is to teach people that pageants for children are not as harmless as everybody makes it seem. These pageants not only strip young girls of their innocence, but it also lures in predators and pedophiles. He goes on to show the audience the ways that the provocative behavior of the girls can reap negative attention from all types of people.
In Megan Garber’s article, entitled “The (Booze-Infused, Bikini-Clad) Values of The Bachelor,” she examines many of the core features of the popular reality television show. The Bachelor, and the corresponding The Bachelorette, both involve a group of contestants vying for the love of the Bachelor or the Bachelorette, finally ending in an engagement between the chosen pair. The traditional depictions of romance and dating on these shows play a role in their enduring popularity. Garber’s article describes these representations as seen in The Bachelor, including the limitations placed on the contestants, the emphasis on conservative family values, and the formulated dating procedures. Garber observes that the casting of The Bachelor is typically
The reality TV show “Bad Girls Club” is in fact a disguised psychological experiment because it unambiguously casts women who undeniably have psychological problems with the intention to watch how they violently interact with each other and because the show alters situations for a specified outcome. The participants of this experiment are psychologically unstable women who are labeled as “bad girls”. These neurotic women are placed in a house with other unstable women with the intentions of enduring constant conflict, arguments, and alliances. “Bad Girls Club” is systematized in a way in which features within the reality show are altered so that specific events are destined to occur for the hidden psychological experiments purpose. Factors such as these serve to represent how “Bad Girls Club” is
Throughout the history of media, stereotypes have developed a big role in decision making for producers. In the article “Appalachian Culture and Reality TV” by Angela Cooke-Jackson and Elizabeth Hanson, there was a lot of discussion about how these unscripted shows such as the The Real Beverly Hill Billies, were depicted in a negative and unethical way. This show showed footage of uneducated, ignorant, ripped clothing individuals who live in the Appalachians. Producers of the show used humor to depict these individuals instead of real emotions. This angered many individuals who are considered to be in within the subculture.
For example, on one of China’s most popular dating reality show, If You Are the One, a girl said to the boy that “I'd rather be sitting inside a BMW and crying than sitting on a bicycle and smiling” (Zhao, 2010). Similarly, on another dating show called Go for Love, a girl said that “Do not talk to me, unless you are rich” (Zhao, 2010). Since the two girls’ worship-money mentality was contradictory to Chinese traditional marriage values, audience were attracted by the shows. However, according to Kefan Cao, a Chinese television presenter, the girls were actresses and they were arranged by the directors of the dating shows. This shows that the dating shows were designed to strike the audience with controversial moral values such as “materialism, narcissism and discrimination against the poor among China’s younger generations” (Wang, 2016), so that they can make profits from commercial sponsors.
Why as a culture do we still glorify these kinds of shows? Reality TV magnifies these stereotypes, that leads to approval of what a woman should be in a pop culture, lets women know how they are judged only on appearance. In some cases, the “fantasies of power” as she puts it, take the image of superheroes She says that these images do what is called “enlightened sexism”, creating the major actions we see in reality. The “enlightened sexism” tends to mislead the young women that are trying to look good, for the approval within our culture values trying to compete against each other.
Everyone in the world in the world seems to know who the Kardashians are, wherever you look they seem to appear, on billboards, magazines, in salons, on the internet, pictures of them are plastered everywhere. The Kardashian family is popular culture. In this essay I will be discussing consumerism, the role of technology in consumer culture and materialism in accordance to the show Keeping Up With The Kardashians and the Kardashian family, and explaining it through conflict theory. Conflict theory dictates ideas coined by Karl Marx (1818-1833) who has divided the social groups into two classes, the bougeousie and the proliteriate. He states that because of the inequality in the power balance and the bourgeousie having a capitalist hold over the proletariates, they abuse their power over the proletariates.
Similarly, Kirwan-Taylor’s article on the unhappy life of the rich describes the negative effects of being overly rich or famous. “One of the most common complaints among the super-rich is loneliness” as a result of their overwhelmed friends from lower statuses drifting away from them (Kirwan-Taylor). Having enough money to buy oneself a lavish lifestyle does not always guarantee happiness; most people lose many friends and ultimately become bored. People with addictions to having a better life or status than others often are the ones that experience more
Despite the creator’s of Modern Family effort to portray a progressive view of American families, the show still accentuates outdated female stereotypes and gender roles; reinforcing gender characteristics, patriarchy and hegemonic masculinity. In contrast to its title, Modern Family promotes traditional gender roles and stereotypes of women, which result in the portrayal of an inaccurate image of the female, and weakens the stance of women in today’s U.S. society. Gender stereotypes are prevalent throughout the Modern Family; the women are all portrayed as wives and mothers, promoting a continued male dominant family ideology. Claire and Gloria are throughout the show acting on our society’s “assumptions about women’s ‘appropriate’ roles” (Dow 19).