Do Reality Shows Really Reflect Reality?

Reality Versus Edited Reality

Reality shows are our best attempt to reflect reality on television, but they only reflect reality to a degree. In other words, if you ask whether or not they reflect total reality or one hundred percent reality, one would have to say no.

There are a number of reasons for this.

If one was to enter into a wilderness experience alone, as an actual reality, anywhere in the world, a television camera crew could not or would not be tagging along, much less recording every breath one takes or each move that one makes.

In order to have that wilderness reality experience filmed, with the person who is supposedly alone, there has to be a compromise of some kind and that compromise takes place in terms of loss of the actual reality. In other words, the person who is supposedly alone in the wilderness is no longer alone in the reality show, even if he or she appears to be alone. The television crew is there too.

When one enters into a scenario that is going to be shown on television in the future, he or she knows that there is going to be editing, after the filming is completed by the director and his television crew. What is documented or recorded, can be edited before it is viewed by anyone else. A good part of the reality that is recorded winds up not used in the reality show. Sometimes, it is put into a film storage bank and may be used at a later date. The question becomes one of what has been edited out and does it change the actual reality? It may or may not make any difference.

It can take miles and miles of film footage before the film editor or director finds something that he or she thinks will sell. Television time is far too expensive for film not to be edited, at least to some degree. If the film from a reality show does not sell, the director knows that the reality show may be gone by the next season. What this means, is that the reality show that we are looking at, is an edited, reality show.

Taking these factors into consideration, one realizes that there is considerable merit in reality shows, as they are unscripted, at least to a degree. Perhaps that is why they are so popular.

Is that not what we love, ie. freedom of speech and reality, even if only in part?