As I've been doing the reading for Tuesday about soap operas and their implications for genre and gender, I can't help but think of the Real Housewives franchise. I am sure most of you are familiar with the premise of the shows which involve wealthy women from cities all over the United States who are thrown together in awkward social situations and various expansive displays of wealth and hedonistic pleasure despite not really being friends in "real life."
What made me think of the shows is Gledhill's use of the term "unchronicled growth" in which we think that the lives of the characters on the shows continue despite the shows not being on television at the present moment. In the case of the Real Housewives, their lives really are continuing because they're real people. However, the shows are heavily scripted and the women are told by the producers to say certain things or perform certain actions in order to incite squabbles or God knows what else. It could be said that there is some kind of story line or plot occurring, since the producers clearly have in mind specific scenarios they hope to see happen as a result of the pettiness and vanity of these women.
Also, these shows are geared towards a female audience, to be sure. You'd be hard-pressed to find a guy who's willing to sit through an entire episode without feeling acute pain. These shows are marketed as "real" depictions of "real housewives" across the country, from Beverly Hills to right here in DC that women are supposed to be able to relate to on some level.
That being said, do you guys think that the "Real Housewives" could be considered a soap opera? I think that Gledhill's arguments in Chapter 6 of Representation combined with popular knowledge about the shows and their premises makes for a pretty convincing argument on behalf of them being soap operas.
By my humble estimations, America, and every other place in the world with access to American cable television, is about six or seven seasons too many into So You Think You Can Dance, a show that, we're always assured, is the most popular dance show on television. That there are enough dance shows on television to merit such a comparison still mystifies me, but I'll save that rant for another day.
Anyhoo, last night's audition episode aired footage of deaf dancer Jarrell Robinson's performance for Dance's esteemed . . . [wait for it!] JUDGES! After completing what appeared to be a perfect performance, Robinson, of course, had to subject himself to the assessment of the panel of "experts" convened to determine whether or not FOX would be flying him to Vegas. Watch the following clip to see the whole thing play out before your very eyes:
Now, before I continue, I know that I should just simply ignore spectacles like the one above. That mainstream American television has yet to figure out how to represent the disabled should no longer shock me. Nevertheless, last night's commentary on Robinson's audition was one of those WTF moments that I just could not let go, and here's why:
Setting aside Adam Shankman's awful, enormously condescending description of Robinson as "incredibly special" and "inspiring," and completely forgetting Stacey Tookey's deer-in-the-headlights-how-do-I-diplomatically-remind-this-guy-that-he-can't-hear-the-music-? blather (gotta' love that "vocabulary of your steps" comment--pun anyone?), we are left with saintly Nigel Lythgoe's fair and balanced commentary to lead us: "How do you feel the music? Is it through the vibrations?"
Deep, deep sigh.
Robinson responded diplomatically, emphasizing the force of the bass and the way that the low end vibrations help guide his dance steps. I smiled at this response because, from a technical standpoint, it was precisely the way that a dancer should respond. Also, I couldn't help but chuckle at the difference between Robinson's answer and what mine would have been. Below is what I would have said:
"Yes, dear Nigel. I feel the music through the vibrations, much like you do. Or did you not know that you too feel music through vibrations." I probably would have spiced up the response a bit with a few choice expletives, but I don't want to offend my legions of readers . . . just yet.
Again, we're talking mainstream television, so this kind of aggressive ignorance to, well, the functioning of the human body should not be surprising. (It should be noted here that given the recent Sarah Palin-Seth McFarlane dustup, I'm not entertaining tired, simplistic arguments about FOX being all conservative and corporate--though I would grant you that SYTYCD is a conservative show.) Regardless, what mystifies me is why shows like Dance continue to trot out people with disabilities only to kick them off in favor of tweeny-looking contestants who ramble on and on about all manner of tragedy--dead mothers, estranged fathers, lost dogs--and about how they have only one shot to make it, of course, on this bloated television show. Granted, many of these contestants get cut, too, but I still can't help but wonder what kind of catharsis Dance is supposed to be peddling.
Moreover, I know that Robinson was supposed to have appeared to be cut in the name of objectivity: His dancing, disability aside, wasn't right for the competition, as Nigel kindly put it. Again, though, we need to be generous here, because we are never really told why his dancing wasn't right for the competition. Also, dancing, as this show configures it, is an entirely visual medium. There's no singing, and there's little talking, so in many ways, Robinson was not at all disabled in that context. In fact, given all of the godforsaken finger spelling that the contestants do when Cat Deeley encourages viewers to call in to vote, Robinson, as someone fluent in sign language, would have been better than everyone else. Maybe that's why he was cut?
FOX palyed a similar "objectivity" card a few years back when The Big Toe band, fronted by Mark Goffeney (a bass player born without arms), was cut from the short-lived reality show The Next Great American Band because their music lacked hooks, as judge Ian Dickson noted after "closing his eyes" during the performance. Again, the basic premise here is that if the able-bodied limit their senses, attempting to block out the context that reveals the performers as disabled, then some form objective judgement should reign. (It's funny, though, how when I close my eyes during the music of The Clark Brothers/Sons of Sylvia, the show's winner, I can't hear any hooks, either.)
In Robinson's case, though, that gesture toward objectivity is utterly wrongheaded because the fact remains that all of us experience music though vibrations. Robinson's disability had nothing to do with anything last night, yet he remained, in the judges' eyes, "special," "inspirational," and "unfit for a dancing competition in which he feels the music better than the other competitors." If only his pet cat had been run over on the way to the audition.
I'll grant FOX credit for at least attempting to air programming that represents the disabled more regularly than many other mainstream television networks. But, as we know, they have missed the point over and over again. At best, the network is deploying poster-child like representations; at worst, the network is just clunky and is scared of "taking risks"--which is most likely the case.
And so as I sign off for the day, I'll leave all of you--and especially Nigel--the following clip of Mogwai playing "Mogwai Fear Satan" live. FF to around the 6:45 mark to feel the deafening vibrations. Punctured eardrums have never vibrated so gloriously.
Well, folks, the new season of 24 has begun, and I'm loving it. It's a not-so-guilty pleasure of mine that I reveal to virtually everyone I meet. "You don't watch 24! Never seen it!! WTF!!!", these conversations tend to go.
Having said all of that, I have grown a bit weary of the series, and I've argued quite openly that if in fact this show is meant to be "realistic" (which is what it would lead you to believe what with it's incessant countdown clock framing, literally, every minute of each episode), the most realistic thing that could happen in it would be for Jack Bauer to die. After all, why is it that he's the only character who does the right thing and who can get there in just the nick of time and is a crack shot even when under fire and can withstand exposure to bioweaponry? Oh, that's right. It's because he's the star--and the main reason that we tune in to watch the show. Kill him off--no mater how realistic a move it would be (and it would be a really real one)--and ratings could plummet, I suppose.
So in any case, ENG 72 is off and running with its discussions of realism, so now's as appropriate a time as any to think about how this contemporary fictionalized reality show actually matches up against the reality of the real world. These distinctions are obviously not neat ones, IMO (if you couldn't glean that much from my deliberately muddled prose), so let's, um, interrogate them. Click here to watch a video about the reality of televised representations of torture.
First off, I'm digging this conversation about Angela's post. Nice work, folks!
Secondly, my argument for the day is admittedly reductive and concrete, but it's hump day, so I'm begging for a little slack. Upon listening to M83's Before the Dawn Heals Us last night (and BTW, Dawn is the messiest post-shoegaze masterpiece out there, so pick it up promptly), after our class met, I was reminded of this Pitchfork article that calls attention to Anthony Gonzalez's own brand of resistance to power. It was probably a dumb move on his part, which is why he eventually apologized. Regardless, we now have some hump day fodder. Which leads me to all of these points:
After yesterday's conversation, I wanted to call all of your attention to some of the examples that I can conjure which suggest that heterosexual relationships--that frequently normalize heterosexual, childbearing sex--are still at the center of contemporary representations of romance. It's also fitting to note that many of these representations emerge from "reality" and "family" television, so make of that what you will.
