Reality Television Shows

Research Paper

Ones’ perception of what reality is and means is unique for each and every individual, therefore saying a type of television show depicts actual reality is misleading.  Reality television supposedly depicts the average person on a television show, but many times this is not what happens.  Reality television is a huge success in America, with numerous television networks airing reality television shows.  Reality television is successful because viewer’s love watching other peoples’ lives and relating to that life.  Reality shows provide entertainment for viewers, but the shows are often misleading, promoting bad behavior, and changing the way our culture views actual reality.  Reality television shows are extremely misleading to young teenage girls, the shows portray ‘real life’ inaccurately, leading to the misinterpretation of reality by young people.  Ironically, reality shows give an unrealistic depiction of ‘real life’.  Recent studies and experiments conducted by professors, psychologists, doctors, and other professionals.  Results overwhelmingly show evidence that reality shows in fact effect viewers.  Further research needs to be done to create awareness about the depiction of ‘reality’ on television, when the viewer is unaware that what they are watching is not ‘real-life’.  Young people are much more susceptible to being swayed or influenced by situations depicted on television shows.

Reality shows are very misleading to viewers.  For example MTV’s hit reality series’ 16 and Pregnant and Teen Mom are shows that follow the lives of young women dealing with the struggles that a teen parent faces.  The actors are the same age as the show’s intended audience, therefore these two shows appeal to teenage girls because the actors are relatable.  16 and Pregnant gives viewers a fairly realistic portrayal of how a teen parent’s life is after having a child by showing the hardships that young parents face.  The sequel Teen Mom however, features the same teen parents, but not all of the same struggles that a normal teen parent faces.  In Teen Mom the actors and actresses already received a paycheck for their appearance on the show 16 and Pregnant therefore lack of money is no longer an issue.  The young parents have nice cars and their own houses, while in the real world most young parents are barely making enough income to support their family, which is what makes the show misleading to viewers.  According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention only about half of teenage mothers receive a high school diploma before the age of twenty-two.  In today’s job market getting a good job and being successful with no high school diploma is nearly impossible.  However, Teen Mom does not show this, the mothers are successful whether they received a high school diploma or not, because they have a lucrative television contract.  Young people should not believe that teen parenting will automatically give them a lavish lifestyle like the actors and actresses on the television series.  Promoting teen parenthood in an unrealistic manner is not what the media should do to adolescents.  If the media is going to portray teenage pregnancy they need to do so in an accurate way, not a way that makes teenage girls aspire to become pregnant at a young age.

By promoting an unrealistic depiction about teen pregnancy and parenthood, young girls receive the wrong impression.  As a culture it is crucial that young people make good choices, become educated, and develop into a successful member of society.  Teen parenting makes it difficult to accomplish any of those.  With the glamorous impression television gives concerning teen parenthood making teenage girls more likely to become pregnant at a young age.  MTV had a good idea of showing the hardships of a teen parent in 16 and Pregnant but unfortunately producers became too focused on providing good entertainment in the sequel Teen Mom and Teen Mom 2 that the message was lost.  In 16 and Pregnant, MTV captured a more real side of teenage pregnancy, viewers saw real problems teen parents face, such as money trouble, lack of social life, balancing high school and teen pregnancy. Those issues give teenage girls a better insight at what a teen parent faces each day, however this realistic view was lost in the sequels.  Just by watching those television shows it was very clear that providing teenagers with information about teen motherhood became less important to the producers.

The influence of reality television is not only seen in teenage mothers, but in women of all ages.  T. Morris, and K. McInerney’s (2010) analyzes how the media represents pregnancy.  Many mothers reported that watching reality childbirth shows gave them information on how actual childbirth was going to be. However, Morris and McInerney also find that in these shows women and their bodies are often depicted as being inferior, and unable to have natural childbirth (p. 134-135).  Women receive the idea that they have to depend on pain medicine or medical surgeries in order to have the child when in reality, that is not the case.  Women should be attending proper child birth classes or asking their health physician questions, not using the internet and television as means to get answers concerning childbirth.  In D. Young’s article nearly half of women resort to the internet for childbirth questions if they do not like what their doctor tells them (p. 87).  This is an alarming number, any person with access to internet can make a post, and therefore information found on the internet is not always reliable.  Mothers-to-be could be misguided by using information from the internet concerning their pregnancy which could be harmful to the mother and unborn child.   Just because they are dissatisfied with an answer provided by the health care official does not mean they should resort to information from an internet source.  Teenagers and women both should be well-educated on pregnancy and childbirth, however one cannot merely watch television to obtain this knowledge.

  Also T. Morris, and K. McInerney discuss how reality television presents real people and real life, but in a scripted manner.  Reality shows greatly increased in the last two decades and attracted an enormous audience.  Therefore, producers only search for experiences that are sure to entertain the audience (p. 134).  Clearly, the messages of reality shows are not to provide realistic depictions of life, but to provide entertainment for the audience and good ratings for the network no matter what.  Entertainment and ratings are the root of the problem, if producers were not so concerned with the two the need to stretch the truth, and script the show, while still calling it real life would not be exist.

Reality shows in many ways degrade the importance of having good ethics and morals.  Countless reality dating shows rely on sex and alcohol to appeal to viewers.  ABC airs the Bachelor, a show where one man has twenty or thirty women all living together and competing for the same man’s love.  The current bachelor Juan Pablo, is going out on dates and having sex with several different women in the house.  Infidelity and promiscuity are not admirable traits however, these women are competing for a man who has several different relationships going on at the same time.  Female viewers rave over Juan Pablo, yet very few females want a man who is promiscuous.  In this case the reality show altered the perception of love and turned it into a competition or a way to become famous for young girls.  Dating for adolescents is complicated enough without the media providing false hopes about what ‘real love’ is.  The bachelor gives the portrayal of a fairytale love, and real life love is not going to be a fairytale.  Actual love and relationships are full of problems and conflicts that arise and have to be dealt with.  Television rarely shows that side of ‘real love’, only the perfect fairytale aspect.

E. Zurbriggen and E. Morgan (2006) wrote that “Adolescents are exposed to numerous messages about sexuality, from a variety of sources.  These messages impact adolescents’ attitudes toward and beliefs about dating and sexuality, which in turn affect behavioral choices such as timing and relative safety of sexual activity” (p.1).  These findings are not surprising, young adolescents receive the wrong messages about dating and sex because of reality television.  They think unsafe sex and dating multiple partners at the same time is alright because of how reality television shows portray it.  Television shows such as the Bachelor gives misguided portrayals to young girls of what ‘true love’ actually is.  Exposure to this material causes young people to make poor decisions about sexual behavior often harmful to the adolescent.  In most girls’ lives true love is not found on a competitive reality television dating program, and yet some girls think that love is only found on a television show because the dating shows aired on television portray the competitive dating show as being the way to find true love. Also in that article the authors discuss that evidence shows that greater exposure to sexual scenes from television shows is linked with that individuals own sexual behavior and choices. The article uses women who watch music videos, evidence suggests that the more frequent viewing of music videos influence the number of sexual partners and sexual permissiveness (p. 2).