The Real Real
Emma McLaughlin & Nicola Kraus (of Nanny Diaries fame) co-authored a new teenybopper book called The Real Real about the reality behind reality tv shows and the actual scriptedness of them. I went to Border’s tonight for a reading. Here is their theory on the matter of reality tv. When these shows start getting filmed, such as The Hills or Laguna Beach, the idea is to take ordinary teenagers and to film their ordinary lives. Yet in a way the shows wind up detracting from the the plainness of their lives when the ‘actors’ are introduced to fame and public attention. As the show becomes popular, the result is that they have to struggle insanely just to keep paparazzi out of a single scene because the characters have become so famous. So the result is an attempt to extract the fame from their lives in an effort to showcase the ordinary. And this is called ironic.
Oh, they also explained that according to their producer friends at mtv, they try to keep reality tv characters as “sleep-deprived and inebriated as possible” at all times. And they choose emotionally unstable individuals on purpose. Audrina is starting to make alot more sense to me now..as in..maybe it’s not her fault?
