Introduction
Never before have so many people been labeled and well thought-out as superstars live their day-to-day life. This has been led by the constant rise of reality television. The celeb creation potential in these contests filmed, where “an average individual is changed into a superstar,” is hardly just the topic of discussion amongst television critics, similarly of a new mythical genre called reality TV fabrication by Henry Jenkins (Jenkins 2006).
The narratives critically examine realism television illustrations, where talent demonstrations such as the Pop Idol or reality game shows like Big Brother, and how they increasingly produce what has been called “the new celeb look”: normal persons revealing themselves and thus become figures of communal embarrassment instead of commendable people respected for their exceptional gifts and capabilities. Although it may be a social agreement, it is evident that the worth of getting considered a celebrity has shifted dramatically.
Reality TV fabrications, such as Ben Elton’s Dead Famous (2001) and Chart Throb (2006), critically examines reality television’s fame-making mechanisms and the meaning of celebrity in contemporary values. Relatively from being attributed to invincible figures like Elvis Presley, this term is now applied to everybody. As a result, I will discuss how modern novels represent the concept of the new personality in the setting of realism TV shows in this paper.
Reality TV and celebrity culture
Reality TV stars such as Big Brother houseguests, Survivor castaways, and Bachelor rose winners have forced researchers to rethink the role of industrial and economic practices in creating an ordinary celebrity, and also to consider the cultural and ideological values that go along with these celebrity images. Before Wood and Skeggs (2011), who both proposed theories on how individuals who become famous through reality television become famous for a short time, were largely used to explain the phenomenon of short-lived popularity. Wood (2005, p. 21) says that celetoids are “the accessories of cultures organized around mass communication and staged authenticity.” These are people who get attention from the media one day and are forgotten the next. It seemed like reality stars had the same kind of short-lived fame as celetoids, which helped promote the show but didn’t have much effect outside of it. In fact, many of the first reality stars were only famous for as long as their shows were on TV. Still, the fact that reality TV stars are becoming more long-lived and complicated in the early 21st century shows that we need to rethink the role of regular stars and celetoids in a more converged and conglomerated media environment.
Reality celebrity in celebrity culture
The reality star, on the other hand, seems to have nothing more to offer than their everyday selves, which are already part of the story of the show from which they came (Rose 2005). A specific type of reality celebrity may be found even inside the confines of the show or series. According to Hunter Hargraves, the success of the genre relies on certain players becoming “micro-celebrities” in the reality TV world by doing the same thing over and over again on multiple reality franchises. According to Tyree (2008), a “micro-celebrity” is defined as a “social media star who becomes renowned by “forming a persona,” “generating material,” and “strategically appealing to online admirers by being real.” (Marwick 2013, p. 112) Reality television shows are rife with this type of job. To give you an idea of how popular The Challenge has become, it’s important to know that it has brought together contestants from several of MTV’s other reality shows, such as The Real World, Road Rules, and Are You the One? to compete in a competition-style reality show, increasing their public profile beyond their initial appearances. The Challenge has been on since 1998. (albeit within the narrowly defined confines of the network). Johnny Devenanzio, also known as Johnny Bananas, is a well-known micro-celebrity from The Challenge. Johnny Bananas first showed up on The Real World: Key West in 2006. Over the course of the show’s sixteen seasons, his character has grown into a smart and powerful one, which he keeps up on social media even though most people don’t know who he is. For Johnny Bananas and the other The Challenge contestants, “Just being yourself on the show is both the way to get famous and the limit of this type of reality TV fame.
In a similar vein, the reality celebrity shows that the form, not the person, is what matters most in the concept of the media-produced celetoid. The reality television industry thus generates a category of people that can be regularly filled with fresh people, rather than just a single celebrity. Disposable celebrities assist reduce the risk of celebrity generation and “shield the larger system of celebrity valorization from the combined challenges of scarcity and clutter,” according to Mendick (2008, p. 891). Celebrity status is bestowed upon the contestants on The Bachelor and The Bachelorette, and their personal and romantic lives are meticulously documented. However, most of them disappear into obscurity after the show is over and are replaced by the new season’s model. So, even if Bob Guiney (Bachelorette season 1 and Bachelor season 4) or Meredith Phillips (Bachelor season 4 and Bachelorette season 2) are no longer needed when a new season starts, they can still be called “Bachelor stars.” There is a lot of attention capital in the category itself, which draws viewers to the next season of the show as well as to extra-textual media products like gossip media in print and digital form as well as social media platforms for more information about the “truth.”
A long-term partnership between the Bachelor franchise and Us Weekly has resulted in both media benefiting from the development and dissemination of reality superstars. Since the first season of The Bachelorette in 2002, the magazine has provided ‘exclusive’ access to the ‘real’ Trista (Rehn) Sutter through cover stories, interviews, and photos. This has helped to raise awareness of the show’s narrative and provided intertextual space for the construction and circulation of Trista’s celebrity outside of the show itself. Aside from that, when the show finished, People continued to publish articles about her relationship with “winner” Ryan Sutter (as well as their wedding), their two children (who were born), and her postpartum weight loss, all of which helped to cement her celebrity status. As a result of this coverage, Trista remained in the public eye for a longer time than most of the other contestants on The Bachelor/Bachelorette. However, this coverage set a precedent for how magazines create reality stars by featuring them in the gossip stories that typically fill their pages. Every season, these reality stars continue to live their private and normal lives in front of the public, which gives Us Weekly a steady stream of new material. They do this in ways that are both part of the show’s plot and not, from the first time they meet the new Bachelor or Bachelorette to the last couple’s engagement, wedding, or breakup. As a general rule, the fame of Bachelor/Bachelorette contestants tends to fade after the show is over, even though their time on the show and the public personas created for them by the show and Us Weekly will likely shape who they are in the future. Even so, some viewers may still keep up with their favorite contestant on social media or by following them. For all we know, the next batch of contestants will be ready to fill in for them when they’re gone. In order to mass produce this cyclical celebrity-like figure, reality television is an important place to do so in a way that does not harm the category’s commercial or cultural value. According to Kuczynski (2001), reality TV stars are linked to the forces of capitalist conglomeration that shape today’s media landscape because the Walt Disney Company owned ABC Network and Us Weekly when they created the “Bachelor/Bachelorette star” category.
Due to the success of Kim Kardashian, Bethenny Frankel, Lauren Conrad, and Jade Goody, other scholars have started to see how important the private and ordinary self is becoming in the rise of reality TV stars and in the larger context of celebrity culture (Holmes, 2004). Since reality TV shows have become so popular, they have shown how everyday celebrities are turned into products and used by the media. As these and other reality stars utilize gossip media and virtual entertainment to confirm the “legitimate” and “customary” self (and the societal attributes that self-addresses) presented in an unscripted television program, the harmony between their private and public lives is once again distorted. While traditional stars employ extra-textual media to contrast their on-stage and television personas, the reality celebrity must develop renown around solely their private selves. Glamour publications don’t cover reality stars the same way they do traditional celebrities, according to Scarborough (2014, p. 247), because “reality celebrities do not try to develop a wider star image.” It’s because of this that they ‘publicize and comment on events that have already been broadcast or predict and forecast “actual” incidents to come’ (Scarborough 2014, p. 247). Promote your program and circulate your image in order to build cultural and economic value by’simply being yourself’ across media platforms, both of which are related to your efforts. That’s why we need to expand the function of labor to understand what these celebrities actually do to construct their fame around their private self, the venues where they perform this job, and how this labor contributes to a celebrity’s broader societal power in the face of reality television.
Class Culture and Authenticity in Chinese Reality TV: A Case Study of X-change
‘This “unabashedly commercial genre” is “unified less by aesthetic principles or certainties than by the merger of popular amusement with a self-conscious claim to the discourse of the real” (Ouellette and Murray, 2009, p.3). In the year 2000, a domestic ‘reality’ TV show introduced the notion of reality TV to Chinese audiences (Wood, 2003). It is certain that there will be cultural differences if a foreign reality TV show is launched and produced in China. These cultural differences include differences in social ideals, standards of moral conduct, levels of enjoyment, expressions of humanity, and even personal habits. But the reality show X-change is the best example of a foreign model successfully adapted for Chinese audiences and depicting social class and class interaction. I’m going to refer to X-change as having a middle-class gaze’ (Jermyn, 2008). To begin, an explanation of X-format changes and the creation process is provided. Second, a specific episode will focus on subjects such as socioeconomic class, self-transformation, and authenticity. Thirdly, this program’s academic and social media conversations will be shown. Finally, there is a conclusion concluding the three main sections.
Social class and the ‘middle-class gaze’
Nowadays, reality television shows deliberately stage social stratification. According to Wood and Skeggs (2011), reality television depicts the daily lives of “ordinary people,” which are highly linked to social interactions and the socioeconomic status of the viewers. Media portrayals of various social classes are also intertwined, they both agree. As Scarborough (2015) points out, reality TV producers are adept at capitalizing on viewer anxieties, and class can serve as a useful yardstick for viewers assessing the moral character of others.
When X-change Li’s producer saw the UK reality show Wife Swap, he was inspired to create X-change. While in China, Li attempted to make the show more relevant to the Chinese audience. Because the practice of exchanging wives is considered morally repugnant in Chinese culture, the method used to choose the program’s participants is critical. Both programs have a similar goal, despite their different social contexts and target audiences. In both Wife Swap and X-change, participants are taken out of their familiar surroundings and placed in an unfamiliar one, where their values and preferences are radically altered. It was important to Li to document the daily lives of people from various socioeconomic classes in contemporary China and to observe how that social mobility occurs in different regions of the country. Because of this, X-change is a reality television show that is based on and created within the social class culture.
Jermyn (2008) uses the term ‘middle-class gaze’ to describe how the media exploits middle-class ideals and tastes in Wife Swap. By stating that “the pure gaze indicates a break with ordinary attitude towards the environment, which, given the conditions of its performance, is also a social separation,” Bourdieu (1984) mentions the idea of “gaze” (1984, p.4). People who use their emotions and feelings to live their “normal” lives are not employing the “pure gaze,” which is the antithesis of this. In Lyle’s (2008, p.320) view, the “middle-class gaze is a type of (mis)recognition” that can lead to the (mis)understanding of the working class “as being of lesser value” In a society dominated by the upper classes, people in the lower classes are constantly scrutinized and condemned for their appearance and lifestyle. Middle-class behavior is seen as the norm, ideal, and acceptable behavior by those in the class. There are three distinct but linked ways that “reality television’s gaze acts on its three distinct but interlinked parties: participants, producers, and audience members” (Jermyn, 2008, p.329).
Middle-class eyes in the UK are restricted to X-change analysis. When it comes to class, Chinese culture has an entirely different “gaze” term than that used in the UK. Soldiers, peasants, and workers were prominent figures in China’s public discourse throughout the first three decades of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). It wasn’t until the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) changed its stance toward entrepreneurs in 2000 that the Chinese middle class began to reemerge and “the term ‘middle-class’ or ‘middle strata’ was first used in the PRC” (Egbert, 2013, p.1). A harmonious Chinese society is being built by the expanding middle class and the previously working class, which respect one other and learns excellent manners from each other. There are some middle-class folks who can’t afford to waste their money, despite negative reactions. They lack the cultural capital of the same social level because of their economic background. This could lead to a decline in the morality of the middle class in China as individuals of lower educational attainment see them as “low-educated but prosperous.”
Working-class people in China are known for their generosity and enthusiasm, as well as for being the cultural icon of hard work in Chinese history. Reality shows in China, such as X-change, show the working class in a more positive light. An X-change producer reportedly said that a countryside is a form of heaven for purifying the soul and creating decent people. People who participate in the exchange experience the beauty of human nature, such as trusting one another with their whole hearts (Egbert, 2013). On the other hand, this is the polar opposite of the portrayal of the working (lower) classes in the UK media as being infantile or debased in order to achieve a better living (McCoy, 2015). Last but not least, in the United Kingdom, the middle-class gaze is also adopted by the general public. As Allen and Maton (2012) write, they “operationalize their social and cultural capital to take a scholastic and critical distance from reality television itself,” viewing reality television “ironically” and presenting watching reality television as a working-class taste. After participating in an audience study by Skeggs, and Wood (2008), a middle-class audience criticized and denounced watching reality television, but nevertheless chose to “keep her critical distance and moral value attitude about reality television” (Skeggs, 2011, p.10). Because reality TV is a form of entertainment that appeals to people from all walks of life, Chinese audiences aren’t focusing on the middle class, but Reality TV as X-change has the potential to become a hit with all classes.
Discussion
Chinese social media has been abuzz with discussion over both the program and its substance. Is it a decent show for reality TV? It’s expected to be a moderate response. Since it has received miraculously high ratings and made it to the top of the national agenda, it is evident that X-change is an extremely popular reality television show in China. Aside from that, it is a good illustration of how to locate a foreign software and also demonstrate the possibility of localizing it. The media’s civic duty is to expose China’s growing wealth disparity and education inequality through its reporting. People are more aware of rural areas’ plight after broadcasting, which prompts charitable organizations to raise funds for schools and better the lives of those in rural areas.
When children from different socioeconomic backgrounds are placed together, there is always debate regarding whether this might have a positive effect on both parties. A big number of individuals believe that it is harsh to those children from the rural areas. Rose (2015) points out that if the youngsters had never seen the sun, they would have been able to withstand the darkness (a poor but tranquil life in the rural) (luxury life in the city). A week of exposure to the media may extend the perspectives of rural children, but what about the rest of the remainder of their lives? It’s hard to erase the memories of a life of luxury when you’re suddenly thrust into the harsh realities of life.
Conclusion
Celebrities are “celebrities” because they have a job that revolves around the public sphere and allows them to reach a large audience through it. Postmodernism is the overarching idea that underpins this reach. It is postmodern because celebrities abandon their old commercial practices and embrace popular contemporary forms of culture. Mass audiences are accepting more and more techniques and types of art and entertainment, and mass audiences are more easily accessed thanks to globalization’s backing. As a result, the line between popular and high culture blurs, and postmodern ideology expands. The media has a crucial role in this. Celebrities are visible through numerous forms of media. They do this for a variety of reasons: to promote themselves and their ideas, to sell products, and occasionally to support politicians. Examples of this may be found in cinema and the music industry, as well as in politics. Politicians realized that if they moved away from conventional politics and toward the image of the modern politician, they might attract a larger audience. personalization as an ideological practice the profession, which was once inaccessible to the general population, has grown more relatable and accessible.
The concept of the new personality in the setting of realism demonstrations is critically reflected in reality television fiction. The novels focus on the celebrity processes at work station with a satirical look behind the scenes, underlining how the advancement of the normal is closely linked to the continuous expansion of reality tv as a current television category. What is novel about this type of personality, as presented on television, is that it is not often associated with unique abilities or aptitude; relatively, it is about regular peoples’ desire to go to any length to achieve fame. People tend to do whatever it takes to find the kind of fame they need even if it means doing humiliating things for this sake.
X-change combines documentary and reality TV in a unique way (McRobbie, 2007). It was inspired by British makeover reality TV, but it did a good job of making the show more Chinese while keeping the same idea. Like the original British series, X-change tells a story about how people move up or down in society and how different classes interact. The phrase “middle-class gaze” was also clear in how the class culture was set up. Whether the term “middle-class gaze” is used in the UK or China, the program has shown the social divide by combining the tastes, behaviors, clothing, and living environments of the two countries.
References
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