Vulture Culture

Fancy being judged, exploited and publicly shamed? Apply online now to enter next year’s Reality TV show!

It’s cruel, it’s manipulative. It’s a brain – washing, soul destroying, money-making playground for the rich and idle. And we love it.

Week after week, the general public are tuning in to watch and ridicule the obscure array of unwitting guinea pigs who sign themselves up to the slaughter of reality TV. At the risk of sounding grossly hypocritical I am more than willing to admit that I myself need my regular indulgence of these shows. I endured that love – hate relationship with Big Brother’s Nicky ‘Who IS she?’ Grahame, valiantly held back the tears at the fate of the X factor would – be finalists, and am glued every Monday at 9 to get one step closer to finding out that all important question: Who will be America’s next top model? The reality however, is that while these shows may seem just harmless ploys to make profits, the messages sent out by them have much more serious moral undertones.

Undoubtedly, one of the primary attractions of reality TV is the public’s chance to criticise and mock. Fans will flock from miles to the legendary Big Brother House again this year, simply to give the latest evictee’s already bruised self esteem one final blow. It seems to me that the sheer volume and popularity of reality TV transmits the astonishing message that this bullying behaviour is not only acceptable, but amusing. If this is the society in which children are being raised, is it any wonder that one in three are bullied at school? How can we tell them that this behaviour is wrong, when we ourselves indulge in it so readily?

People are now more than ever willing to enter shows which not only emphasise, but unashamedly flaunt the stereotypes which are pinned to them. Take the UK and US show Beauty and the Geek. Whilst hiding under the false notion that they are trying to “combat” stereotypes, the show in fact does the exact opposite. With some effective editing and skilful selection, archetypes at both ends of the spectrum are easily portrayed, ridiculed and more worryingly, strengthened. Liberalists and feminists alike have struggled for decades to abolish the stereotyping which suppress thousands of individuals daily and now the media in general and reality TV in particular, is quickly undoing any progress which has been made.

It is far too easy, however, to place all the blame on media outlets. We must accept our own share of the responsibility. Without society’s prejudices, there would be a distinct lack of stereotypes for the media to manipulate in the first place. Furthermore, without audiences thriving on the wide and multiplying supply of reality TV, it would have been axed after those first escapades of Craig and his fellow housemates in Big Brother One. It is also important to remember that without actors, the show, contrary to the saying, simply can’t go on. Contestants put themselves up for the honour of appearing on reality television and many go to extraordinary lengths to get there.

Take a minute and try to imagine Television without X – Factor, Big Brother, Strictly Come Dancing, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, Model Behaviour, Shipwrecked and the horror that is Wife Swap. Difficult, isn’t it? Now try to imagine them being straight – up, genuine shows with not a hint of conflict. Even harder? The problem is, reality TV simply would not be successful without all the elements which challenge its moral ethicality.

Regardless of the ‘hows’ and ‘whys’, it appears that reality TV is not going to make an exit any time soon, and neither are the cultural ideologies which accompany it. Much like the age old question of the chicken and the egg, it is difficult to establish which came first: media manipulation or vulture culture. Do we manipulate the media or does the media manipulate us? Until we reach an answer, change will always be just out of our grasp.