Author: shookm

A few days ago The New Yorker published a piece by Emily Nussbaum detailing various lawsuits and allegations from former Love is Blind cast members accusing Kinetic Content, the show’s production company, of mistreatment. I’ve watched the show since it was first released four years ago and knew there had been various controversies and that some former cast members had started a nonprofit advocating for labor rights and mental health support for reality TV stars. Most of the examples of mistreatment in the article struck me as standard practice in reality TV production. The isolation, the emotional manipulation, the constant supply of alcohol, the lack of regard for mental health issues—it’s all unethical but not surprising. The article wasn’t revelatory or groundbreaking, but it makes me wonder whether discourse surrounding the ethics of reality TV has changed significantly and if so, whether industry practices will meaningfully change. 

It feels weird to think of reality TV stars as victims because they voluntarily sign up for their roles and they gain social media followings and brand endorsements. But Nussbaum outlines how former Love is Blind cast members have made a case for themselves as exploited and underpaid workers (because appearing on a reality show isn’t typically understood as labor, reality TV stars are often unpaid or paid under minimum wage, which is part of why reality TV is so cheap to produce). I’m not sure Love is Blind’s treatment of cast members differs much from that of other shows now or in the 75 years the genre has been around, but I think the traction these claims have gained partially results from the dissonance between the show’s marketing and cast members allegations. Netflix advertises Love is Blind as an alternative both to the shallowness of online dating and the trashy reality dating shows that saturate the market. It is framed in pseudoscientific terms as a social experiment and exercise in looking past superficial distractions and social barriers to build romantic connections. So despite the show resembling other reality TV in most regards, the language used by the hosts and Netflix to sell it suggests that the show should be helping and therapizing the cast rather than exploiting them for drama. 

The reality TV-star-to-influencer pipeline has also contributed to increased criticism of the treatment of reality TV cast members. Social media has allowed former reality TV cast members more opportunity to craft their own images. Working within the limitations of their contracts (though many Love is Blind cast members have revealed information that potentially violates their contracts on the grounds of talking about abuse rather than sharing trade secrets), cast members can attract followers by revealing exclusive behind-the-scenes info and also reframe public perception if they feel they received an unfair edit. This increased access to cast members outside of footage produced and edited by Netflix and Kinetic Content has given more space for cast members to air their grievances. I’m not sure if this shift in discourse will change the reality TV industry. And if it does, Nussbaum asks the question of whether the genre will work without all the manipulation and unethical production practices, which I’m not sure Love is Blind could be so popular without.

Reading the Gray, Jones and Thompson article made me think about The West Wing, which feels the antithesis of political satire. It opts for a more idealistic and earnest approach to political commentary than Colbert’s speech, Veep, and the TikToks in the Atlantic article. The series focuses on the staff of a fictional American presidential administration, essentially providing a revisionist version of the Clinton administration without all the scandals and triangulation. In the liberal fantasy the show presents, patriotism transcends party allegiance, impassioned speeches pass laws, and a group of self-righteous Ivy League grads re-envision the government as force for good. 

Thinking about political satire on television and how it functions within the episode of Veep we watched emphasized the shortcomings of The West Wing. I love The West Wing as a character-driven drama with narrative complexity, as Mittell outlined. But reading the show in conversation with real world politics, which it often explicitly asks for, highlights how satire is a more effective means of expanding and challenging conventional understandings. For example, in one episode, the DNC wants the president to include that line “the era of big government is over” in his State of the Union speech (a direct reference to the 1996 Clinton State of the Union address) and one staffer protests because he disagrees with the sentiment. After a rousing speech, everyone else gets on board and they remove the line from the speech. Clearly, this episode comments on the Democratic party’s embrace of neoliberal rhetoric, but the direct historical  revision feels heavy-handed and didactic, instructing viewers what to think rather than raising questions for viewers’ own social analysis. Especially since the structure and demographics of the government in The West Wing look remarkably similar to our own (without parodying them), the show doesn’t defamiliarize or re-contextualize naturalized systems and phenomena in the way that satire and parody can.

I’ve only watched a handful of Veep episodes, but I’ve seen critics compare it to The West Wing, noting how the former captures an exaggerated version of government as it is while the ladder presents a vision of what it could be (in a very Aaron Sorkin, shortsighted way). This distinction results from a difference in genre and form, but in terms of offering meaningful critique and raising questions for viewers to consider, Veep works a lot better for me. 

I watched Gossip Girl for the first time recently and it momentarily took over my life. I found myself unable to look away and aimlessly searching for some intellectual justification for my interest. As a contemporary viewer, primed by ubiquitous satirical content about rich people behaving badly, I looked for class commentary. What I found was scattered, inconsistent ideology. 

The aesthetics of luxury and excess—showy designer clothes, lavish galas, spontaneous international vacations on private jets etc.—immediately register for me as satire. But while the show is driven by over-exaggeration, it toes the line between satire and aspiration, both mocking and romanticizing ~the scandalous lives of Manhattan’s elite~. Unsurprisingly, soap and scandal power the show rather than a coherent message, which allows for broad appeal across ideological lines and leaves room for various dominant and oppositional readings. It is worth noting that the show premiered months before the Great Recession, which depending on your reading may have made its social critique more scathing or its glamorization of wealth more tone deaf. 

 My own negotiated readings goes as follows. The show is about fascination with celebrity. Gossip Girl, the blog that narrates the show, facilitates this obsession. Whether readers engage earnestly or ironically with the blog and whether they send in tips out of idolization or derision for the Upper East Siders, the proliferation of this content and its solidification of the characters’ icon statuses legitimizes their elite position. As much as these characters decry the exploitative and corruptive nature of the blog, they rely on it to take down their enemies and advance their interests. And outsiders use it as a means of gaining access to an exclusive world. 

My own relationship with Gossip Girl (the show) mirrors the characters’ relationships with Gossip Girl (the blog). Ideologically, I hate the characters and everything they stand for, but my affect keeps me emotionally invested in their lives even as they manipulate and exploit. The show has the potential to interrogate class structure. For example, one character constantly grapples with his outsider status, even as he becomes increasingly insider-y, moving from the slums (read: a spacious Brooklyn loft) to a penthouse in the Upper East Side. The native Upper East Siders understand their inherited wealth as deserved and protect their elite statuses by policing the line between insiders and everyone else. Although the show is rife with material for social commentary, I find myself rooting for the morally bankrupt characters who illustrate the need for critique rather than engaging in the critique myself. 

I can’t help but return to one of my all time favorite shows, Veronica Mars, which coincidentally stars the voice of Gossip Girl, Kristen Bell, as a teenage girl who doubles as a vigilante detective. The 2004 series delivers more precise and effective class commentary than Gossip Girl. It constructs its ideology through its aesthetics and inventive use of genre conventions. Blending film noir and teen drama (e.g. using voiceover narration which is staple of both genres), it creates a prevailing sense of injustice, cynicism, and disorder while granting access to the interior life of a girl navigating her social life, grappling with trauma, and figuring out her identity. As the hard-boiled detective/teenage protagonist, Veronica operates outside and between social worlds, revealing connections between wealth, power, and sexual violence. Unsurprisingly, Gossip Girl aired for six seasons and Veronica Mars was canceled after three due to low ratings.