Reality Perception

From the documentary genre of TV shows they are shown to be 'reality TV shows', to emphasize the show as a daily following of the real life of the characters. Well since watching reality shows, such as survivor and the amazing race, well reality is extremely debatable. The endless rumours of the helping hand that contestants and the shows 'characters' are given, surely they cannot let a person starve for 5 days? Well who knows?,  but its the image they want to perceive so that we keep watching this outrageous theory and situation. Touching on the shows characters for a moment - another arguable situations where in a case of contestants getting voted off, the most interesting ones are almost always going to stay in the show until the end no matter how many rules and regulations they may break or if they deserve to be there or not, the ratings of the show s what really matters. In reality TV there has to be the depiction of the nice character and the mean character, it creates confrontation and another storyline and interest. Its almost best, to play the most interesting, the 'bitch', or the crazy one always creating 'drama' and drama is what they get from it - a following. So the reality of reality tv and documentary style shows is never fully trusted because our, meaning the audience, are never really given the truth are we? - just entertainment to give them more money and following. Obviously documentary shows such animal planet and the current animal show on TV One recently, follows real wildlife stories and extensive footage. Well they definitely can't trick us there, they don't tell the elephant to play soccer with the camera disguised as a 'poo' for want of a better word, apologies. Animal shows must be real??

With no shame I can say I am a 'Keeping up with the Kardashians' viewer, now I don't idolize the family or any of them, I purely watch to see how 'the other half live', I laugh at it, at them most of the time because they are ridiculous buts its interesting. So, this family have been filmed nearly every day of their lives for the past 5 years, even more, they are used to the camera. Sure, situations are exaggerated and emphasized to create more 'drama' but I mean, most of it must be real, they love themselves and think they are 'fabulous' which they admit, they are completely honest with the camera, they agree with what 'haters' say, they love themselves. Someone like my mum can sit down and barely watch 5 minutes of the show when she sees how dressed up they are, the kind of car they get into and the small little things they can whine about and fight about with each other. Yet the point that a lot of people don't see or understand is that, this is their work, this is the easiest and most highly paid job you could ask for with such minimal effort. Their lives are dramatic because they make it but you get to know the characters and the surprising to some values and morals they have had imprinted in them but then still grow up to believe in live by. At the end of the day, the cameras watch a family, a very wealthy family that are extremely materialistic but also could not live with out each other, they are each others lives, they love each other and they can still sit down at the dinner table once a week: daughters, sons, boyfriends and husbands and all, even though you may see the butler and caterer in the back ground, their get ups worth thousands they can still be like a normal family just with a few different occupations and day jobs. One of them even has had both pregnancies and births filmed, you cant get more real than that can you? Do you believe its real when a child is born and seen through their family handheld cameras?

In conclusion, documentary shows wary people and question the honesty of the camera, but of course the camera is going to skip all the boring parts like eating every meal, there's no drama in that and nobody would watch it, it would be boring. Yet, you can still see the 'real' side with the drama, just slightly more exaggerated. The people on these reality TV series are just like you and me, they just live slightly differently, can have most things they want, stay at hotels free of charge if they are shown in their series but it reality - they live that life and that's how they succeed. Reality really hitting you in the face, that could be you on the television, that could be similar to your life but it's not, that's why you watch it. You're still "fabulous darling".