Browsing by Subject "Reality TV"
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Item Bodies, identities, and voices on American idol(2010-08) Boyd, Maria Suzanne; Staiger, Janet; Fuller, JenniferThis thesis examines the ways in which American Idol producers rely on the white, Christian, heterosexual, middle-class, Americanness of contestants’ bodies and identities to advance the show’s American Dream narrative. When contestants do not meet all four of the components of Americaness, producers highlight some aspects of the contestants’ identities while hiding other truths about who they are. Additionally, those contestants who are able to adhere simultaneously to their producer-constructed personas while also asserting their individuality tend to fair best in the competition.Item Create to live : perceptions of contemporary art in reality TV(2016-05) Macknight, Lauren; Bolin, Paul Erik, 1954-; Bain, ChristinaWithin the field of art education, there has been little to no research into the knowledge afforded by discourses around popular culture, especially those specific to reality television, into how the public conceptualizes contemporary art and artists. This kind of foundational knowledge is critical to our own development and evolution as a field as we learn how to most effectively reach our students and advocate best for the value of arts in education. Through an investigation of the television program Work of Art: The Next Great Artist, I asked: is the perception of contemporary art and practice altered by the lens of popular culture and, specifically, the reality television format? Is this an entryway to a broader dialogue about art’s value in the 21st century and to young individuals’ lives and careers? Results from this study were threefold. First, results pointed to a pattern of progressively nuanced insight and descriptive talk, indicated alternative access to art’s interpretability through the lens of popular culture. Talk in the focus groups functioned as a way for participants to perform access to interpretive authority over subjects of contemporary art to varying degrees of success, whether that meant adopting art terminology or modeling the language of judges and artist-contestants. Secondly, analysis displayed the discursive work involved in the meaning-making around understanding the artist as a figure, as a myth, and as a profession. Participants’ interactional speech performed a balancing act between critically examining the competing discourses of the artist—as contestant and creative laborer—and an understanding of who they are and their own identity in relation to the character of the artist. Lastly, analysis uncovered situated meaning of art and its value, where participants conducted a critical negotiation of what is and what was not art unfettered by lack of art historical knowledge of access to art’s interpretability.Item Here for the white reasons : examining identity, representation, and fan-producer relationships within the Bachelor franchise(2022-05-06) Veltri, Kellie Nicole; Scott, Suzanne, 1979-; Perren, AlisaThis thesis attempts to explain the complicated nature of fandom of The Bachelor over its two-decade history and explore how members of Bachelor Nation attempt to reconcile their fandom with the franchise’s shortcomings. Despite the franchise’s long run, little academic research has been conducted on its depictions of racially diverse contestants, as has been done for other reality television programs. In addition, the series’ longevity in a changing television landscape and continued popularity in the face of multiple well-publicized controversial events both on- and off-screen calls into question what it means to be a Bachelor fan. Using a combination of textual/image, paratextual, and quantitative analyses, I interrogate how The Bachelor reached a point of high fan engagement and awareness about its built-in issues, as well as how fans have used the technologies that has evolved with the show to try to influence it and its contestants. I employ two case studies in this effort: a quantitative investigation of the hometown visits episode of Season 18 of The Bachelorette, which demonstrates how marginalized fans discuss nuanced issues of representation on the show, and an analysis of paratexts produced and interacted with by each person and group involved in the 2021 The Bachelor winner Rachael Kirkconnell’s antebellum party scandal, which ultimately ended with the resignation of host Chris Harrison. The latter study investigates how groups in disparate positions of power, namely fans and producers, use the same online tools for different purposes, as well as how and when producers of the series interact with fans and respond to their concerns. Ultimately, I argue that while the franchise has made some progress in representing more diverse voices and experiences in recent years, at least in part because of fan activist efforts, there is still much work to be done, as it continues to center Whiteness throughout nearly every aspect of the shows.Item War stories TV tells : genre, gender and post-9/11 television(2018-05) Shannon, Katherine Maeve; Schatz, Thomas, 1948-; Fuller-Seeley, KathrynSince 2003, the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars have been present on television in ways that are distinct from previous conflicts, yet media studies have only begun to examine how these contemporary war narratives are becoming more commonplace on entertainment television. This study is an examination of television series that have depicted US conflicts abroad since the 2003 invasion of Iraq in order to survey the popularization of wartime narratives as they are seen across a wide range of programming. Jeanine Basinger and other scholars like Susan Jeffords have posited that war narratives and their reproductions are inherently gendered texts that tend to privilege men in combat while excluding women on the homefront. This exclusion functions to emphasize, celebrate, and restore traditional notions of masculinity tied up in the homosocial nature of war. This study then asks how entertainment television addresses war as a domestic medium that takes part in gendered formulas. Looking at and beyond dramatizations of ground combat so often invoked in limited series like Off to War (2005) and Generation Kill (2008), this study also highlights the proliferation of war themes in more “feminine” genres like the soap opera. What do female audiences and melodrama posit that more traditional combat genres cannot? And why do we insist that one informs more than the other? Looking closely at three series -- Taking Fire, a reality TV combat series on Discovery Channel; Army Wives, a Lifetime primetime soap; and Homeland, a “quality” spy drama with a female lead -- this study examines how genre and gender are negotiated on the small screen as they relate to contemporary US conflicts. Shannon argues that television’s assimilation of contemporary war is informed not by the nature of the conflicts themselves, but rather by gendered divisions embedded in TV programming and the generic formulas set forth by traditional combat films.