In a popular TV show “Bones”, lead character Dr. Brennan Bones, socially awkward, but brilliant anthropologist, believes that reality television show “Jersey Shore” is actually a documentary about a tribe called “Guidos”. Although she is mistaken about the genre of that show, her assumptions about their language and customs is not far off. Using the same observation methods, future anthropologists might conclude that the basic human need for entertainment hasn’t changed since gladiator games in Rome, and that people are willing to do anything for money. There is a lot of information that future anthropologists can gather from reality television, but the truth is, it is misleading because most of it, if not all, is scripted. A better question
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Fleiss is the creator, producer, and writer of The Bachelor, The WB’s Superstar USA, The Bachelorette, and The Will and High School Reunion, so he knows what he’s talking about when it comes to reality television. One example of this is the show called House Hunters. This show follows individuals, couples, or families looking to buy a new home with the assistance of a realtor. According to Bobi Jensen, a woman who was featured on the series, the producers did not accept Bobi as participant on the series until she and her family already closed on the house they were buying. When it came time to film they had to go to their friends’ homes and pretend they were looking at houses for sale. Another example is a popular show Jersey Shore. In the fourth season episode eleven filmed in Italy, Nicole Polizzi known as Snooki and Deena Nicole Cortese went to a night club, while standing at the bar the bartender threw ice at Deena and Snooki started cussing and breaking bottles conveniently placed at the bar. If you rewind the video and look closely, you can see Deena looking at the person who threw the ice, her producer, while Snooki was yelling at the bartender you can also see that same producer was telling her to break the bottles. If anthropologists look at this video they could assume that American-Italian young adults are just dumb kids, but in reality they are simply acting out a scripted scene and they are better than the characters they play, but that is also
Fleiss is the creator, producer, and writer of The Bachelor, The WB’s Superstar USA, The Bachelorette, and The Will and High School Reunion, so he knows what he’s talking about when it comes to reality television. One example of this is the show called House Hunters. This show follows individuals, couples, or families looking to buy a new home with the assistance of a realtor. According to Bobi Jensen, a woman who was featured on the series, the producers did not accept Bobi as participant on the series until she and her family already closed on the house they were buying. When it came time to film they had to go to their friends’ homes and pretend they were looking at houses for sale. Another example is a popular show Jersey Shore. In the fourth season episode eleven filmed in Italy, Nicole Polizzi known as Snooki and Deena Nicole Cortese went to a night club, while standing at the bar the bartender threw ice at Deena and Snooki started cussing and breaking bottles conveniently placed at the bar. If you rewind the video and look closely, you can see Deena looking at the person who threw the ice, her producer, while Snooki was yelling at the bartender you can also see that same producer was telling her to break the bottles. If anthropologists look at this video they could assume that American-Italian young adults are just dumb kids, but in reality they are simply acting out a scripted scene and they are better than the characters they play, but that is also