Few Episodes Of The Show example essay topic

American society loves to watch other people struggle to deal with life's hardships. We find this much more entertaining than perfect fairy tales where everyone lives happily ever after. My friend Kim Olsen is the perfect example as every Tuesday night you can find her glued to MTV at ten o'clock to see who will hook up next or who will start a fight with whom. This past summer I became interested in MTV's, The Real World, because every Tuesday night Kim would watch each episode and then spend the rest of the week discussing it. I knew very little about the show and had only seen it once or twice. However, after spending many Tuesday nights without Kim and having to listen to her non-stop talking about the show and how it was real, I began to wonder what this obsession was all about.

So, I decided to sit down with her one night and tune in to The Real World along with doing some research about the background of the show. I'll admit, I found the show entertaining. However, I found that MTVs' The Real World is nowhere close to being "real" as a lot of people might say it is. The Real World is a "reality" show that puts seven strangers in a house together to have their everyday lives caught on tape.

This show has become popular because it shows how everyday people deal with everyday problems. Furthermore, seeing other people fight with each other and break-down right in front of our eyes makes us feel better about ourselves and helps expose us to issues we might not face in our own lives. When people find a television show that captures all of this, they will want to watch the program all the time and a station will have found themselves a hit (Johnson p. 6). The Real World is the perfect example as it has grown to be one of the most watched television programs for more than ten years. Each week, thousands flock to their televisions to see what conflict, romance, fight and mishap will occur this time around in these people's lives. This show is created and produced to find people they know can make an interesting character based on how they lived thus far and is looking for groups of people they know will clash and cause conflict in the house.

While The Real World can be seen as a fake show by some, others actually are fooled into thinking it is real. The arguments Kim give that The Real World is real are that MTV uses real life people who are acting as themselves. They do not hire actors. Furthermore, the footage is real and there are no scripts. Therefore, the show is real since the people are just living their lives in front of a camera. After watching a few episodes of the show and listening to Kim talk about the realness of the characters, I became interested in the people from the other seasons.

I decided to take a look at the books that the show has come out with. I discovered that there are many examples of MTV's attempts to put people with issues into the house to increase the entertainment value of the show. In Hawaii there was Ruthie, a girl who had been drinking since she was very young and admitted to being a party girl when she went out at night. During the show, she not only had an occasion of alcohol poisoning, but she almost got kicked out of the house because of her drunken behaviors (MTV. com). Furthermore, there was Melissa from New Orleans who also had problems with alcohol and partying. In her interview, she discussed her troubled childhood and how she grew up with an alcoholic father.

This was the basis of why she was let onto the show (New Orleans p. 28). In addition to people with alcohol problems, a person in a long relationship is also a token cast member to find. Viewers will be interested to watch and see if the cast member cheats on their loved one, breaks up with them after a fight, or isolates themselves from the group trying to remain loyal. An example of this was Tonya from Chicago who had a boyfriend of many years when coming onto the show. In this situation, viewers got to see Tonya isolate herself from her other roommates.

This lead to conflicts and even fights over the telephone since Tonya would be on it for hours a day talking to her boyfriend (Chicago p. 90). The most entertaining of the series was the recent Las Vegas season where there was a girl, Irulan, in an open relationship. Irulan created a lot of entertainment as she struggled with her feelings for her boyfriend back home and a blooming relationship with her roommate Alton. MTV also tries to create issues, conflicts, and fights by putting groups of people together that do not mesh well. For example, I discovered that almost every season of The Real World has included a gay cast member. Furthermore, to add spice to the season, MTV will sometimes add a homophobic person to the house as well.

In Chicago, there was Chris, a gay art student, and Theo, a black man who had never been exposed to gays before. In the beginning of this season, Chris had difficulty deciding when to come out and share that he was gay with his roommates because of his fear that it would cause problems with Theo (Chicago p. 55). MTV also has tried to put the sheltered, naive people of the show with roommates who may have a thing or two to teach that person. In New Orleans there was a sheltered, Mormon girl named Julie. Living in a town where religion was extremely important, she entered the house facing a huge amount of conflict.

Julie had problems dealing with meeting black people for the first time and that caused some issues with racism. Moreover, she had problems with sleeping in the same living quarters with boys and dealing with what her religion says about homosexuality after becoming friends with Danny, who was gay (New Orleans p. 16). In New York, there was another problem of being na " ive when Mike, a guy from a sheltered southern city, had to live with three black people. After making racist comments that completely offended Coral, one of his "bitchy" black roommates, viewers were treated to the two of them constantly fighting and got to watch Mike learn how to respect people of a different race (MTV. com).

While MTV often does a great job of finding people with problems to try and make their show as entertaining as possible, I have discovered that there are some mistakes. The Real World is edited to show as much entertainment as possible and anything that doesn't conform to this can easily be edited out. There are many examples of this. In Seattle, Rebecca was a cast member who was into music and very sweet. They probably brought her in to be the naive roommate, but she ended up being boring and uninvolved in any issues taking place in the house. As a result, I learned that she was edited out of many episodes (Olsen).

Kelly from New Orleans also fell into this editing process as she was an attractive girl that they probably hoped would be getting involved in many "slutty" acts. However, she ended up meeting a boyfriend a few weeks into the season and as a result was not seen much after (New Orleans p. 33). A better example of the power of editing is seen with Bryan from Las Vegas. In the beginning of the show, I watched as she got involved in a threesome, trying to win the affection of her roommate Steven. She was shown very often in these first few weeks.

However, at midseason she decided to settle down with her boyfriend Austin and thus began to disappear. She was no longer involved in this crazy life of sex and dating so she was immediately edited out of many scenes. Since the show is only a half-hour long and viewers want to see as much conflict as possible, editing also takes another important role. Not only does MTV have to edit out boring cast members, but the crew has to squeeze enough action into an episode to make it entertaining. If The Real World were really a "reality" show taped and shown as it was taped, it would be boring and would not have much substance.

In order to create episodes, MTV finds themes and edits all their film to put these themes together. To do this, they will put film from many different days together, out of order at times. This gives you themes that might not have existed prior to the editing. Cara from Chicago spoke out about the editing after her season was over. In one episode, Cara was dealing with anorexia.

We saw her getting upset about her body, having issues with her food, and confiding in her roommate about this issue. I learned that Cara had spoken out after the show saying that they showed footage from that episode that happened over the course of the four months and showed footage out of order. She felt that the theme for that episode didn't really occur as it was shown. This also happened with the promiscuous behavior she took part in.

There were a few episodes that dealt with Cara having a very vigorous sex life by showing her having sex with several guys in about 2 episodes. When she spoke out about this, she also felt editing made her look like a slut when these events were taking place over a long period of time (Chicago p. 98). Editing can also make someone seem to have a certain personality by only showing one side, the entertaining side. This can be seen with Coral from New York since every time she was shown in an episode she was being bitchy and rude to her roommates. She might have actually been a much nicer person at times, but was not shown at these times since viewers probably wouldn't have found that very fun to watch (New York p. 40). As compared to The Real World, college life in Albany differs very much.

Fights and relationship problems do not occur as often as displayed on the show. However, as compared to the editing part, guys will go out to a club and look for girls that fit the persona they are specifically interested in. They will notice a girl's looks and if she is not what she seems then she is automatically not suitable. After watching a few episodes of The Real World, it was easy for me to see why so many people find the show entertaining. The staff works very hard in creating conflicts and creating enjoyable and entertaining episodes. The casting and editing the crew does works wonders to make each episode fun to watch.

It isn't just picking random people to live together and taping everything they do. It's the way the staff carefully selects certain people to put in an environment where they will stir up the house and have as many conflicts as possible. Kim Olsen is addicted to The Real World and I'll admit I too now find the show somewhat entertaining. However, where I differ from friend is that I realize that the show is not real and that it is a show made to fulfill American society's hunger for entertainment.

The Real World may seem real, and it definitely has some truth to its episodes, but it is not a "reality" television program like so many people say it is.