It’s a rip-off – get me out of here

It can be alarming when you realise you are not a nice person. This epiphany about myself came to me while watching (against my will, I should add) the UK television show I’m a Celebrity – Get Me Out of Here.

Let me explain. "I’m a Celebrity – Get Me Out of Here", for those not based in the UK, involves dumping a group of celebrities in the Australian jungle for a few weeks. They are then subjected to various humiliating and seemingly dangerous trials. This normally involves being showered with insects or being submerged into tunnels with rats and snakes. A notable activity is the Bush Tucker Trial, which, generally, means eating worms, cockroaches and a mandatory kangaroo penis and testicles. The winning celebrity is the one who stomachs the most awful things.

Presumably, the audience, for some perverse reason, enjoy watching the celebrities being mildly tortured. The celebrities, seemingly, agree to the humiliation and simulated danger in return for the publicity.

But back to why I am not a nice person. The revelation came when I found myself, while watching I’m a Celebrity, being overwhelmed by a desire to see the participants being swallowed, one by one, by an enormous snake live on TV, then regurgitated and finally squashed by a bouncing castrated kangaroo.

I do not consider myself to be a violent person. So why my sadistic reaction? My reaction is linked to the duplicity implicit in the shows. Celebrities are never in real danger. Everything is carefully stage- managed to ‘entertain’ the public for money. There is no ‘reality’ involved.

Annette Hill, in her 2005 book on reality TV, notes that reality TV is a catch-all phrase for a wide range of programmes featuring real people. These range from ‘on-scene’ shows (like those set in hospitals) through to shows where real people are placed in different contexts, like I’m a Celebrity, and, most famously, Big Brother.

The latter are peculiar ‘reality TV’ shows because they are not about real life at all. Although they feature real people without scripts, the shows themselves are contrived and supervised by a vast crew. Each task that is filmed is planned, thought through, reactions anticipated, and guided to a predictable conclusion. The show is heavily edited to create characters – the villain, the coward, the nice guy, and so on. Once the ‘true’ characters have been revealed, viewers can decide if they like the characters or not, and then fully engage in the drama by, generally, voting, for a price, for their favourite.

This is where the real exploitation of viewers takes place. Viewers are taken on a so-called authentic ‘journey’ with the characters, and they are tricked into thinking they now know these celebrities. For this pleasure, they have to part with their cash in telephone voting.

Reality TV programmes cost about seven times less to make than drama. The programmers are making massive profits through advertising revenue. They then have the audacity to take money from the telephone vote process. Some shows go even further.

The X-Factor talent show, for example, has the gall to release charity singles for the public to buy. Of course, supporting charity is worthwhile, but this is yet another way the shows can hoodwink the public into participation (righteous this time). The programmers are so greedy they cannot donate themselves to charity from their massive profits. They get the public to do this without undercutting their bottom line.

I am not an anti-TV moralist. Adults can watch whatever they find entertaining and, with informed consent, participants are free to degrade themselves for others’ gratification if they want. Television is not the cause of all social ills.

So, if you want watch this type of reality TV, be my guest, but realise it is all about taking your money. So, at the very least, please do not lift the phone.

This article by Brandon Hamber was published on Polity and in the Engineering News on 10 December 2010 as part of the column "Look South". Copyright Brandon Hamber.

Exporting reconciliation or reality TV

For South Africans, tuning into the BBC recently was like turning on a time machine as viewers across the UK were exposed to Archbishop Desmond Tutu facilitating dialogue between victims and those that harmed them. This time, however, the focus was on the Northern Ireland conflict, and not South Africa, and it made for riveting television as victims came face to face with those that had killed. The series, entitled Facing the Truth, has received mixed reactions. The meetings were a bold move and they may have been helpful for individual victims. They provide some hope for the future. But we have to ask what other messages the programmes convey.

The programmes are not a truth commission but a dialogue, although the central idea leans heavily on the South African experience. It draws on the idea of publicly airing grievances as a way of addressing the past as championed by the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). There are differences, however. The South African TRC’s primary focus was on outlining the causes, nature and extent of the conflict. It was not about victims meeting perpetrators, although this happened on occasion. Such meetings and the TRC were part of a more extensive political process. This has left me wondering: Is Northern Ireland trying to walk before it can crawl, or are high-profile encounters needed to move the process forward? Currently, the peace process in Northern Ireland is stalled. Given this context, the programmes might get people talking and re-engaged with resolving the conflict. The courage shown by participants in the programme can demonstrate what is possible, despite the dense fog of political dilly-dallying.

However, focusing on the victims can also inadvertently suggest that it is the responsibility of victims to reconcile, rather than wider society, as the first step to change, thus burdening victims with another liability. Some victims could feel pressured to forgive or perpetrators feel coerced into expressing remorse they don’t really feel. Airing the programmes in a political vacuum has other problems. The programmes’ focus is the stories of those directly affected or acting in the conflict. There is no context provided or debate about the causes of the conflict. Emotive television of this type also invariably draws one to the plight of the victims. This is important, but conflict resolution is not only about feeling the hurt of victims and sympathising with them. It demands that everyone across society recognise their own capacity for wrongdoing at the same time. Some in South Africa and Northern Ireland still feel self-righteous because they never acted violently. But political conflict is caused not merely by gunmen, but by political contexts that foster this behaviour. This does not exonerate indivi-dual responsibility or mean that all are equally responsible, but it demands that we ask how we supported the situation including tacit acceptance of violence, turning a blind eye to the pain of the other or through continuing to vote along ethnic, religious or racial lines. No one is uninvolved or neutral in protracted political conflict. Resolving conflict requires a public debate on levels of complicity and guilt, not only recognition of the hurt caused or confessions from direct actors. In South Africa we are still grappling with this.The media can foster this complicated debate, but this demands something more subtle than eerie music and darkly lit forums where victims and perpetrators meet. Let’s hope these programmes are a first step in this direction, or has Tutu’s noble desire to bring out the humanity of even hardened perpetrators intersected with TV producers’ ideas for lurid television leaving the international audience with a one-dimensional view of South Africa. The limited reconciliation achieved in South Africa was not a miracle nor was it only the cumulative product of important individual gestures. It was mainly the result of hard work and political compromise – a less attractive but important lesson worth exporting.

This article by Brandon Hamber was published on Polity and in the Engineering News on 17 March 2006 as part of the column "Look South". Copyright Brandon Hamber.

Blogging and Reality TV

Thanks for that Martin. It occurs to me that blogging is like Reality TV with yourself. Based on your hypotheses Reality TV will probably go the same way - dead, or even bigger, until it is back to watching gladiators in ancient Rome in the comfort of your living room. I digress, today, I am working on a report about policy making for victims of violence in Northern Ireland. Not much of interest to say just yet.