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Reality Show Genre Blindness: Difference between revisions
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(Import from TV Tropes TVT:Main.RealityShowGenreBlindness 2012-07-01, editor history TVTH:Main.RealityShowGenreBlindness, CC-BY-SA 3.0 Unported license) |
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[[Genre Blindness]] is not relegated to fiction, apparently. Oftentimes, contestants on a [[Reality Show]] will display, by their behavior, that they have never before seen the kind of show they are on. How they found out about this particular one and auditioned for it without actually watching it remains one of the great mysteries of the universe. This could perhaps make some sense if it's the first season of the show, but you'd think they'd still have enough awareness of the genre to know what to expect.
Actually, it probably has more to do with [[Manipulative Editing]] and/or the producers goading the "appropriate" reactions out of the contestants, or even outright telling them how to act. (Supposedly, on ''[[Survivor]]'', the contestants have been told that any time they mention a previous season/contestants, it won't be aired on film, and on ''[[Big Brother]] 2'', contestants were told not to mention the first ''[[Big Brother]]''.) Or maybe, as the more cynical of us might think, there's just no reality to it at all and the "contestants" are actors. Or, as the even more cynical might think, [[Viewers
The quote at the head of this article, incidentally, is true in at least one aspect — to simplify editing, contestants are either not given a choice as to what clothes to wear, or are placed in situations where the entire group is made to construct a "uniform" or some sort; if editors decide to "recycle" a clip that was cut from an earlier segment (where the contestant may have been wearing a different outfit), it may not match properly with the more recent footage.
Typically, the casting will try to avoid the [[Genre Savvy]] players because an entire season full of them wouldn't seem to be very interesting. It's the people who will fight with each other for petty reasons, [[Small Name, Big Ego|ego cases]] who boast to the [[Confession Cam]], the spazzes who are borderline insane, [[The Mean Brit]], and the [[I'm Not Here to Make Friends]] types that make the show worth watching - not the [[Dangerously Genre Savvy]] players who'd sit around and keep their mouths shut and set up [[The Plan|clever plan after manipulative plan]], or the genuinely talented people in talent shows. A common thing with reality game shows is that [[Awesome but Impractical|what makes a good show does not always make a good game]]; [[Boring but Practical|and what makes a good game does not always make a good show]].
{{examples
== General Mistakes ==
* Perhaps what's the most ''generic'' example ever is just not acknowledging that not only do ''you'' want to win, but so does ''everyone else'', actually. A lot of people assume that everyone is thinking of [[Honor Before Reason]] - if someone expresses desire to take you further, it's because they think they can beat you.
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** One of Russell's new "concubines", Stephanie in particular, lectured everyone not to vote out Russell (who had a '''huge''' target on his back) by saying that everyone else would backstab each other... but Russell wouldn't. [[Up to Eleven|And in a tone of voice Natalie White would never use.]] Apparently she wasn't watching ''Samoa'' or ''Heroes vs. Villains,'' whereupon he'd backstab all of his allies.
*** This could just be [[Manipulative Editing]], but Krista could actually realize that if she kept her mouth shut that she wouldn't be the first person targeted — heck, it worked for Brett, Natalie, Vecepia, and Fabio.
** And on the same season, the Ometepe. You're put with two [[
** With the show waning in popularity, the pool of auditioning contestants has become smaller, and a greater proportion of contestants have come from on-the-street recruiting, meaning that later seasons have actually had ''more'' people who hadn't seen the show before being asked to be in it.
*** Tamara Johnson-George (known more as "Taj") has actually lampshaded this phenomenon — she admittedly never saw the show prior to casting and didn't know how to swim or fish. She actually answered casting mostly because [http://www.realityblurred.com/realitytv/archives/survivor_tocantins/2009_Feb_06_taj_johnson_george they were casting for an NFL wife], which she actually met the description of. She finished in fourth, was from a vast minority alliance, and was voted out simply because she was seen as a social threat because she never backstabbed anyone — a move that isn't uncommon in ''Survivor'' when the numbers dwindle to five.
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{{quote| "Oh, you're the guy who's on ''While You Were Out'', right?"}}
* Most of the nuts who audition for ''[[American Idol]]'' fall right into this. Many of the others are actually [[Genre Savvy]] enough to know that the '''really''' awful auditions get on TV, so they deliberately up their awfulness.
** The producers actually deliberately let some bad people through, even encouraging them, so they can have the audience laugh at their [[So Bad
*** Some have attended auditions and reported seeing good singer after good singer get cut while a few good ones and ''several'' moderately bad to hideous ones made it through. Not only that, but contestants have to make it through quite a few rounds before actually getting to the audition you see on TV, which means that these horrible singers are passing through round after round while good singers who just aren't entertaining enough get cut. They probably end up thinking they've got talent ''because'' they're getting through each round.
** Before people can get to the main auditions, they must go through local auditions first. Local auditioners are explicitly instructed to only let through the ''best'' and the ''worst'' contestants. Average singers would be boring, while horrible contestants are amusing.
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** The first season of the American version had a segment in which the subject was asked which of two photographs showed a woman with a better body, with the big reveal being that they were the same woman. This was dropped for Season 2, as anyone who'd seen the show would say "Well, they're the same woman."
* At least partly justified on ''[[Intervention]]'' — the "interviewees" for the "documentary" are usually so stoned that they don't see what's coming, or to remember seeing previous episodes on television. (And that's if the person isn't already homeless or hasn't already sold the TV for drug money.)
* There is ''always'' at least one ''[[
* Anderson Cooper actually [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]] this in ''[[The Mole (TV)|The Mole]]'' ([http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlltgR5fEjs&feature=PlayList&p=6A29F101255613A3&index=27 Season 2, Episode 6]), explaining to a few players who didn't quite understand that they are never being told the truth:
{{quote| '''Anderson Cooper''': Don't you guys know how this game works? If you say you don't like to cook, you're know you're going to end up cooking. You say you like to cook, you don't get to cook.}}
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*** Adam and Shelly apparently thought that aligning with unbreakable pairs who had known each other outside of the game and would ''never'' vote against each other unless they wanted to commit gameplay suicide would bring them to the finals over pairs that were easily swayed and not as iron-bound. Shelly at ''least'' realized that the pairs ''had'' to be split up but Adam apparently thought he'd be brought to the final two no matter what.
** Generically, volunteering to go on the block. It's normally pretty risky.
* Whenever the advertising task comes around in the UK version of ''[[The Apprentice (TV)|The Apprentice]]'', one of the teams will pour all their effort into a TV advert that looks slick and polished [[What Were They Selling Again?|but says absolutely nothing about the product]]. The other team will put together an advert that looks sloppy and amateurish, but says enough about the product to allow them to win the task.
** Subverted somewhat in Season 3, where the winning team's advert was ''deliberately'' produced in a cheap-looking way to go with the theme of their product, although the opposing team fell into the usual trap and produced a slick but meaningless advert.
** Averted for once in Season 5, where the losing team's advert just outright sucked.
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** Recent episodes seem to have the cover story thought up on a case-by-case basis; for example, a waste treatment company had the CEO go undercover as an employee from a company closed for pollution codes violations being the subject of a documentary on him working as various "clean" industries.
* Inverted on a FOX reality/talent show where the contestants were "dared" to do something like recite a scene of a Shakespeare play with no errors or learn to play or sing a song in key by a certain timeframe. Naturally, they never ''fully'' expect what the dare was going to be, since it was ''rarely'' the same and often wasn't a hobby they did.
* [[Game Show]] example: Anybody who watches ''[[The Price Is Right]]'' on a regular basis would know that in "reorder the digits" games like Safe Crackers or Ten Chances, if there's a lone "0" digit in a price, it's almost always the last digit. After all, manufacturers tend to price their products at round numbers (or [[And Ninety Nine Cents]], which ''Price'' rounds to the nearest dollar). Yet far too many [[What an Idiot!]] moments occur when a contestant puts the 0 in the ''second-to-last'' slot (such as $607).
* In the latest series of ''I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here'', Gillian McKeith so far seems amazingly genre-blind, apparently unaware that the contestant who makes the most fuss about the Bushtucker Trials will inevitably be voted by the public to do every single one (and that anyone who goes on this show risks being covered in snakes, insects, etc. at some point). Not to mention the news that the next trial is called "school dinners" — as disgusting food challenges are one of the most famous parts of the show, the rest of her team make the obvious (and correct) guess that this challenge would be an eating one. McKeith suggested that maybe she'd be asked to ''plan'' a school dinner.
* Fictional, but averted in ''Sims Big Brother''. Most of the characters actually seem to know ''very well'' what they're doing or how the game works. The closest example would have to be Keri, who didn't ''really'' know what she was getting into, but this actually became [[Character Development]] as she became ''scarily'' competent later on.
** For that matter, a lot of Machinima based on reality TV shows aren't full of outright stupid players because they're all made up by fans of those shows.
* Many a [[Bridezilla]] has expressed surprise at how bad the show makes them look. One Bridezilla even said the producers asked her to insult her husband on national TV, then [[What an Idiot!|couldn't figure out why strangers on the street hated her]].
* ''[[Laguna Beach]]'' and its spinoffs are a very interesting case. The first two seasons of the series had the conversations between the cast become increasingly scripted (due in part to [[Manipulative Editing]] and staged scenes), and the best moments were often found in the off-script and spontaneous improper behaviour - lead cast member Kristin Cavalieri was a major cause of this; she danced on a pole while drunk in Cabo, continually whined to her father to buy her a new car and had a relationship with just about every male character on the show. She was far from the only one - Jason Wahler cheated on several girlfriends, with the evidence of his guilt caught on camera. After this, you would figure that future cast members would be on their best behaviour for the cameras - however, Kendra and Cami in season 3, Chrissy's father and Allie in season 4 (and several others) make complete fools of themselves because they're apparently unaware that their actions are being broadcast on national television.
* Most of the brides in "My Fair Wedding With David Tutera" who complain about him changing up their original wedding ideas, when they know that's the entire point of the show.
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