Reality TV

209 Pages·2012·0.73 MB·English

by  Misha Kavka

TV Genres
Deborah Jermyn and su Holmes
THe QUIZ sHOW
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su Holmes
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Despite its enduring popularity with both broadcasters and audiences, the
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quiz show has found itself marginalised in studies of popular television.
This book offers a unique introduction to the study of the quiz show, while
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also revisiting, updating and expanding on existing quiz show scholarship.
ranging across programmes such as Double Your Money, The $64,000 Dollar U
Question, Twenty-One, The Price is Right, Who Wants to be a Millionaire and
I
The Weakest Link to the controversial ‘Call TV Quiz’ phenomenon, the
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book explores programmes with a focus on question and answer. Topics

covered include the relationship between quiz shows and television genre;
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the early broadcast history of the quiz show; questions of institutional
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regulation; quiz show aesthetics; the social significance of ‘games’; ‘ordinary’
people as television performers, and questions of quiz show reception (from O
interactivity to on-line fandom).
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Key Features
• Represents one of few book-length studies of the quiz show

• Offers an accessible introduction to the genre for undergraduate students
• Draws upon new archival research in order to contribute to knowledge
about the early history of the quiz show REaLITy TV
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• Demonstrates why the quiz show matters to Television Studies u
• Brings together key approaches in the field with new interventions and H
areas of study (such as the quiz show in the multi-platform age, and the o
study of ‘ordinary’ people as performers) lm
Misha Kavka
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Su Holmes is reader in Television at the University of east Anglia. s
ISBN 978 0 7486 2753 0
edinburgh University Press
22 George Square
edinburgh
EH8 9LF
www.euppublishing.com
E
d
in
b
Cover Image: Man surrounded by falling banknotes, smiling, elevated view © Getty Images urg —– TV GENRES —–
Cover Design: Barrie Tullett h
Reality TV
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TV Genres
Series Editors
Deborah Jermyn, Roehampton University
Su Holmes, University of East Anglia
Titles in the series include:
The Quiz Show
by Su Holmes
978 0 7486 2752 3 (hardback)
978 0 7486 2753 0 (paperback)
The Sitcom
by Brett Mills
978 0 7486 3751 5 (hardback)
978 0 7486 3752 2 (paperback)
Reality TV
by Misha Kavka
978 0 7486 3722 5 (hardback)
978 0 7486 3723 2 (paperback)
Forthcoming titles include:
Crime Drama
by Sue Turnbull
Animation
by Nichola Dobson and Paul Ward
Visit the TV Genres website at www.euppublishing.com/series/edtv
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Reality TV
Misha Kavka
Edinburgh University Press
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© Misha Kavka, 2012
Edinburgh University Press Ltd
22 George Square, Edinburgh
www.euppublishing.com
Typeset in 10/12 Janson Text
by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire, and
printed and bound in Great Britain by
CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 0 7486 3722 5 (hardback)
ISBN 978 0 7486 3723 2 (paperback)
ISBN 978 0 7486 3724 9 (webready PDF)
ISBN 978 0 7486 5435 2 (epub)
ISBN 978 0 7486 5434 5 (Amazon ebook)
The right of Misha Kavka
to be identifi ed as author of this work
has been asserted in accordance with
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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Contents
Acknowledgements vii
Introduction: What is Reality TV? 1
1 Before Reality TV: From Candid Camera to Family Docs 13
2 First-Generation Reality TV (1989–99): The Camcorder
Era 46
3 Second-Generation Reality TV (1999–2000): Surveillance
and Competition in Big Brother and Survivor 75
4 The Second Generation Comes of Age (2001–5):
Challenge and Transformation 110
5 Third-Generation Reality TV (2002–): Economies of
Celebrity 145
6 Legacies: The New MTV Generation 178
Bibliography 183
Index 195
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Acknowledgements
I am indebted most of all to the series editors, Deborah Jermyn and
Su Holmes, for their tireless and stimulating engagement with this
project. Deborah and Su inspired me to write the book and kept me
at it with invaluable feedback at every stage of the process. I am also
grateful to the University of Auckland and the Department of Film,
Television and Media Studies for fi nancial assistance with research
trips and research support. Thanks goes, moreover, to the colleagues
and students who have broadened my reality TV horizons as well as
my personal archives, particularly Scott Wilson, Pip Howells, and
the enthusiastic students in my ‘Reality TV’ class. I am also indebted
to my summer scholar Tessa Clews for her astute comments on the
manuscript. Finally, I am extremely grateful to my family, who created
the time and space for this book to happen: they have encouraged my
obsessions, made me cups of tea and, most importantly, watched tel-
evision with me. No one can go it alone, certainly not when it comes
to reality TV.
vii
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Introduction: What is Reality TV?
When I began studying reality television, many years ago now, I
found myself collecting episodes of Cops (1989–), footage from Court
TV (launched 1991), pratfalls from America’s Funniest Home Videos
(1989–99, 2001–) and seemingly endless hours of highway pursuits
fi lmed from helicopters and police cruisers. I was drawn to these pro-
grammes by the appeal of the raw footage, which looked so different
from the slick sitcoms, dramas and even newscasts on other channels. I
was drawn, too, by the counter-intuitive appeal of slow-paced, trivial,
repetitive events screened on television, where every minute is worth a
small fortune and ‘dead time’ is anathema. When, I asked myself, had
tedium on the small screen become compulsive viewing? In 2000, I
joined the ranks of viewers the world over who were glued nightly to
the fi rst season of Big Brother (1999–). Despite the different premise
and viewing experience of Big Brother, this show struck me as a con-
tinuation of the techniques from Cops and America’s Funniest Home
Videos. The camerawork and the unrehearsed performances of people
engaging with the trivia of everyday life made the link seem obvious.
Reality TV innovations since then – and there have been too many to
count – have similarly been absorbed into the programming slipstream
they have helped to create, even though now there is probably not a
single feature that is shared by all of the programmes which fall under
the rubric of ‘reality TV’.
As I write, the TV discussion sites and review pages are abuzz
with debates about Jersey Shore (2009–) on MTV and My Big Fat
Gypsy Wedding (2010–) on Channel 4 in Britain. As hyperbolic rep-
resentations of social and personal identity, these two very different
programmes probably have something in common, but it is far less
clear how they link back to the mundanity of a show like Cops. Even
in the current environment of 2011/12, it is diffi cult to articulate the
connections among programmes like Jersey Shore, which is a Real
World (1992–) offshoot for Italian American youths; My Big Fat Gypsy
1
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