The Reality Show has come out of the closet

In 1973, anthropologist Margaret Mead wrote an essay in the magazine TV Guide talking about how a normal Californian family became the star of a TV show, An American familywhere they were simply seen passing by in their daily lives.

The idea, so popular today, sounded foreign. Perhaps the genre of reality TV was born there, which it rediscovered in the 90s, with the adventures of the young participants of The real worlda global arrival.

The genre has many followers and it’s no longer embarrassing to confirm that you are a fan of one (or more) of them. At first they did not enjoy prestige, they were considered one of those hidden pleasures. Today its protagonists celebrate juicy contracts, each TV appearance earns them influence and more followers, and this keeps the flame alive.

There is something for all tastes: culinary, real estate, design. Some are more creative than others. And then there’s the game everyone’s talking about, which will be born out of a game-based fiction.

The challenge of “The Squid Game”, in reality version

In June, with anti-Covid measures already loosened, there were TWO awards ceremonies in Los Angeles dedicated exclusively to the growing and increasingly popular genre. Much more than ever now Netflixwho just bled to death from losing subscribers, has just announced that he will be filming the South Korean series the game of squidhis big hit of 2021, in a reality TV contest.

The squid game: the challenge proposes a worldwide casting, so that 456 participants, with the sole condition that they have a passport ready and can communicate in English, compete to win almost 5 million dollars. There is already some debate as to whether the streaming giant’s idea is good or bad.

There are those who believe that reality will bastardize the original idea of ​​the series, which is seen as a critique of capitalism, with its rich making the poor compete, willing to die if they lose. And those who can’t wait to see what it is. the veteran Incredible ridewith his participants on tour around the world, he realizes that there is a sophisticated audience, open to new ideas.

Critics reward the best of the genre

At Emmys they compete in one category, but reality shows are so popular that they already have their own awards, the brand new MTV Movie & TV Movie Awards: Unscripted and the Critics Choice Real TV Awards, which are in their fourth year.

RuPaul’s Endurance Race, the reality show in which drag queens compete, is a consecrated success and was one of the ones that garnered the most awards this month in both installments. The second most voted miscellaneous, for MTV it was For sale sunseta reality show about real estate agents in a market so luxurious it’s almost obscene, and the classic top Chef to the Royal Awards.

Ryan Seacrest became a successful executive producer with the Kardashians show on E! and Andy Cohen did the same with the real housewives in Brave. Two decades later, the original programs grow, reproduce, change channels, make new commercial deals, continue to create controversy.

This month debuted the real housewives of Dubai and the controversy has exploded, because the protagonists, mostly foreigners, waste money and attitudes while 13 human rights organizations ensure that in real life women are repressed in that luxurious city of the Arab emirates.

The idea is that this and all the other reality shows do not have a script, that is, a category that does not compete in these awards, even if it is suspected that there is like a map drawn in the air.

More or less discussed, gender is today a cultural phenomenon. Its protagonists are as famous as those who come from the world of scripted fiction. The actress Selena Gomez teams up with Paris Hilton when it comes to winning awards with her cooking shows.

Meanwhile, psychologists, sociologists and anthropologists continue to be consulted to try to explain the inexplicable. The reasons for that attraction began to sound more familiar, however, during the pandemic, when it seemed obvious that people locked up in the living room of their home wanted to live on borrowed time.

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