Reality Check on the Entertainment Industry

By Jaz Hill on December 16, 2012

TV via Flickr

Not very long ago I despised trashy, reality television shows and anything related to it. I still do. But I’m embarking on a career in the field of entertainment and have come to accept, and even embrace, this lasting trend.

Reality TV is the way of things in the entertainment industry today. From competition-based to social experiments, everyday people with larger-than-life personas have invaded prime-time television and even music.

Remember a time when scripted television – the kind with fictional characters, storylines, and wardrobe – dominated prime-time television? Thankfully, scripted dramas still exists and they’re doing well, regardless of how costly production is.

There’s no doubt been in a shift from fictional entertainment to the reality kind. Instead of fictional TV shows with messages and award-deserving merit, real people are creating the ridiculous drama on-camera we can’t help but eat up.

Reality is where the big money is…or isn’t…which explains its prevalence. The cheap(er) production in casting specific individuals and having them placed in crazy situations makes sense that this business has taken off.

Since the industry is all about entertaining, you kinda need talent for that. I can’t think of any better way to find that so-called talent, while at the same time providing amusement for viewers, than wonderful “un-scripted” television.

The reality business spills over into music. You can’t flip a channel without coming across or hearing about the latest music/singing competition.

Reality TV has provided a way to discover new faces, jumpstart careers, bring people together, supposedly find “love,” and even hold a mirror up to society. Viewers at home can connect with the entertainment via some live reality TV shows. Everyday people are brought into the industry.

I’m not going as far to say the content in entertainment is completely negative thanks to reality TV shows, but it’s certainly crazy. Take that either for better or worse.

At first glance, reality TV shows have dumbed down entertainment when you consider what’s being broadcast: young people partying, glamourized teen pregnancy, highlighting not-so-great aspects of sub-cultures, celebrities and quasi-celebrities trying to find love, and groups of women fighting.

Viewers form an opinion of what they watch. Sharp ones grasp how sad, immoral, naïve, shocking, or inauthentic our public is. This is our society. Reality helps us see that.

Notice the upsurge of reality TV shows in the entertainment industry concurrently with the recession. Provide cheap entertainment with big concepts. It’s not a question of whether reality TV is real. It is a reality of the entertainment industry.

 

How do you think reality TV shows have changed the entertainment industry?

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