One of the things that came up in our conversation in class about "Merchants of Cool" was how reality T.V is not real at all.
This got me thinking about the Truman Show. The Truman Show is basically as realistic of a T.V show that can be made. Truman doesn't even know that he is on T.V. But even this is not completely realistic. The actors that surround Truman are just that, actors. They have a speaker in their ear so that they can be told their lines.
Also, we talked about how advertising is being placed more and more in the shows. The Truman Show is a terrific example of this, where the characters advertise the merchandise directly on the show. They say at one point that everything on the show can be bought. The actors themselves make individual advertisements of products during the show, during Truman's life.
Though the show is reality to Truman, it is manipulated so much that it is not really reality T.V.
Any comments?
Arvind Kalidindi
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11 comments:
I think I brought this up the last time the Truman Show came up, but I just wanted to point out that one situation where Truman's wife was talking directly to the camera, advertising a box of cereal, probably because, if I remember correctly, the Truman show had no commercials.
"They say at one point that everything on the show can be bought."
This really is true. I remember seeing numerous things in different magazines that are advertised as being from a certain tv show or movie in order to appeal to the consumer.
Therefore, isn't the whole confusion with the symbol being the symbolized partly due to these merchants? After all, they are trying to make consumers believe that a product stands for a certain lifestyle.
I got the same feeling that marketers are responsible for people looking at the symbol and the symbolized as one and the same. Like the example that came up in class, Timberland Boots.
Arvind Kalidindi (sorry)
I understand your thoughts about how the Truman Show was reality to Truman, but not to those surrounding him. This makes total and complete sense because reality is never the same thing to two people. Even if there had been another character in the film who was unaware that his/her every move was being observed, his/her view of life and reality would still vary from Truman's visions of these things.
(Sam Maliha)
Wouldn't it be interesting if some company began to film a "real" person that had no idea they were being taped, with "real" friends, "real" family and "real" situations? Would we get bored of this show rather quickly? Would it mimick our lives far too closely for either comfort or entertainment?
I think it is safe to say that most of the class, judging by the way we spoke of it in class and on this blog, find reality tv to be partially responsible for the corruption and degredation of youth culture. But are we really just upset at the label that "reality" tv has been given?What is wrong with these capsules of escapism? Although we often find them obscene and look upon them as merchants of debauchery, isn't the purpose of entertainment to entertain us? If we were truly given reality, no one would watch. I'm pretty sure everyone understands that reality tv is not true, and if it was called "semi-reality", I'm sure no one would really mind.
(Taylor Burke)
We enjoy reality shows because of human nature's innate desire for voyeurism. Reality shows are so interesting because they do not show "reality," but an intentional (and intensional) entertaining exaggeration of it.
Interestingly enough, at www.justin.tv, a man named Justin began "livecasting" by attaching a mini video camera to a hat he always wore and streaming onto the Internet his actual daily life. However, he eventually stopped the 24/7 stream, because people became bored. If you go to justin.tv today, artificial "highlights" of other people's lives are shown and 24/7 lifecasting is gone. This fits with Taylor's belief that no one wants to watch "real" reality tv.
On a side note, check out this article: www.doiop.com/obamasign. A teenager set a video camera upon his Barack Obama sign after several had been stolen from his lawn, as he wanted to watch if the thieves would come back. Eventually, he uploaded the live video to the Internet, and hundreds of other people began to watch the video (of a sign) for hours and hours. This falls under "reality" tv, as people watched live footage of a nonmoving sign for hours. Why would they do that? A still sign and a few rocks are not particularly interesting to watch for hours... Do people want to see true prosaic reality after all?
I feel that the deal with reality TV is that it shows people the reality that they want for themselves, or fantasize about having. The actual show is staged or exaggerated and not an actual portrayal of real life in the sense that people want it to be. I agree with Eric about the innate desire in humans for voyeurism, people are entertained by watching these shows because it supports their idea of what reality SHOULD be like, by saying "This is reality for these people".
(Steve Szumski
The topic of the Truman Show is starting to sound a lot like the play we're reading right now. The Father talks a lot about reality and illusion, and how his reality is the illusion of the actors, and how the actors' reality very well could be illusion. Is the Father more real? Back to the Truman show... Truman's reality is (italics) the show, whereas, for the actors, it is just that, a show. They are "living", in a sense, the same life (sort of), but they have different realities. Any thoughts?
I don't think reality TV portrays reality for anybody, not even the people on the shows. They (the participants in these shows) are quite aware that it's all staged.
However, one could argue that reality TV is reality because whatever content ends up being shown in the actual TV program, at some point, these people did have to live what is show on the screen.
I think reality TV is sort of a paradox: it happened, but at the same time, it's so distorted that it becomes unreal.
-Paige Walker-
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