{"id":1887,"date":"2017-04-15T16:22:37","date_gmt":"2017-04-15T22:22:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sebersole.wordpress.com\/?p=1887"},"modified":"2017-07-09T19:55:03","modified_gmt":"2017-07-10T01:55:03","slug":"survivors-and-victims-of-reality-tvs-deception","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ebersolemedia.com\/blog\/survivors-and-victims-of-reality-tvs-deception\/","title":{"rendered":"Survivors and Victims of Reality TV’s Deception"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reality TV is constantly inventing new ways to shock\u00a0its viewers. This past week on Survivor it was the outing of transgender contestant Zach Smith by gay competitor Jeff Varner. In a side story (in real life), Varner was subsequently fired from his job as a real estate agent by a boss who was quoted as saying that Varner is \u201cin the middle of a news story that we don\u2019t want anything to do with.\u201d<\/p>\n

The uproar on social media was immediate and unforgiving. Some of the harshest criticism was for Varner and his use of the word “deception” to describe Smith’s secret. Others were harshly critical of CBS for deciding to include the scene after months of deliberation.<\/p>\n

But it turns out that CBS and Smith worked closely to prepare for the episode’s airing this past week.<\/p>\n

According to the New York Times<\/a>,<\/p>\n

From the moment the episode was filmed nearly 10 months ago, the \u201cSurvivor\u201d producers had been consulting with Mr. Smith about how best to handle airing the incident, which included a strategic media rollout and working with Glaad, the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender rights group, before the episode\u2019s broadcast.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Jeff Probst, the show’s host and executive producer\u00a0called it \u201cone of the most raw and painful studies of human behavior that has ever happened on \u2018Survivor.\u2019\u2009\u201d<\/p>\n

But I’m left with a question that goes to the heart of reality TV as a programming genre. For the Survivor-type shows where contestants compete for a grand prize, deception, betrayal, and backstabbing are not only allowed, they are encouraged.\u00a0Deception is how you play the game on reality TV…and, unfortunately, increasingly so\u00a0in the world of politics and international relations.\u00a0But I digress.<\/p>\n

One viewer took to Twitter refusing to accept Varner’s apology\u00a0saying, “Apologies only have meaning when they are expressing sincere regret for a mistake. What Varner did was no mistake. He intentionally humiliated Zeke and tried to justify it.” Exactly!\u00a0That is how you play the game on Survivor.\u00a0The drama created by conflict\u00a0is why most people watch, and have been watching Survivor for more than 13 years. The business model for Survivor and CBS is based\u00a0on people doing outrageous things in front of cameras and microphones. CBS will cash that check\u00a0over and over\u00a0again…or at least\u00a0as long as the audience shows up asking for more.<\/p>\n

But we’re still left with the question;\u00a0why did\u00a0this tactic by Varner elicit such a strong response from viewers?\u00a0Just like the\u00a0collective judgement directed at\u00a0United Airlines, the moral outrage targeting\u00a0Varner and CBS is indicative of society’s\u00a0desire for justice. We know when something is over the line. But whose line is it, and where should it be drawn?<\/p>\n

Some of the ugliest disagreements (on social media and elsewhere) are between people who want to draw the line in a different place than where others\u00a0think it should be drawn.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reality TV is constantly inventing new ways to shock\u00a0its viewers. This past week on Survivor it was the outing of transgender contestant Zach Smith by gay competitor Jeff Varner. In a side story (in real life), Varner was subsequently fired from his job as a real estate agent by a boss who was quoted as … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Survivors and Victims of Reality TV’s Deception”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,14,24,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ethics","category-media-industry","category-social-media","category-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebersolemedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebersolemedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebersolemedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebersolemedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebersolemedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1887"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ebersolemedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1887\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1931,"href":"https:\/\/ebersolemedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1887\/revisions\/1931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebersolemedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebersolemedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebersolemedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}