Blogging about The Real World

I have a Facebook.com page, but I have never experienced blogging like this before. I learned a lot about the whole blogging process and at the same time learned more in depth concepts about The Real World. I have always just viewed the show for the drama and to watch the story lines, but I never really realized how I am a victim of the reality television frenzy. When watching the show before this class, I would have never broken the show down and analyzed it in a Marxist or hegemonic way. I have always seen the racial stereotypes that are put on the show, but I have never really looked into the conflicts that occur on the show. I liked the blogging format instead of writing papers. It is much more informal, and I was able to get feedback from classmates. From reading the feedback from both the professor and the student, my I was able to question my responses and was also able to add more to what I had understood in the first place. The most important thing that I learned about The Real World Denver was how much MTV put into selling the show. I have never really been on the MTV website before this. There is so much one can learn about each character and the show, just by going to the website. And this doesn't even include commercials, posters, and promo parties around the country.

Race becomes an issue in the house!

In the fourth episode of The Real World Denver Season, the two black males Tyre and Stephen and the homosexual Davis got into a verbally abusive fight critisizing each other's stereotype. Everyone is out at the club and gets pretty intoxicated. Davis decides to go home because he feels that he is too drunk. Stephen claims that Davis left him at the bar because the bartender would not let Stephen in and said a racial slur. Stephen claims that Davis heard the bartender say the word and then did not defend him. When Stephen gets home he tells Tyre and Tyre gets heated and gets into Davis's face to the point where they are both screaming at each other "I want you out of here! Hit me!!" Tyre repetitively gets in Davis's face and says face me like a real man. Davis, who is most intoxicated, then gets on the phone and starts screaming "I'm going home because some "n****r" wants to hit me."

I feel that this issue is apart of today's American culture because Davis has claimed many times that he is not a racist and that he is a devout christian. Yet Davis said the "N" word when he was mad and drunk. I think that there are many people in America today that claim that they are not racist, but in the back of their minds they do think about the negative stereotypes the African American and may agree with some of these characteristics. Does this make them a racist? Does this make them a hidden racist? I think that there are many Americans that are "hidden racists." They would never act negatively in any way towards an African American, yet they still have some racial feelings.

When Davis tries to get Tyre to hit him he tells is assuming that Tyre would just become physical and blow up at Davis. He tells the producer who has to step in between the two that he doesn't want to live with Tyre because he is a black man that is going to kill him. Where does Davis get this image. It's like the reading on whether or not popular culture is dumbing us down or making us smarter. It may be making smarter, but dumbing us down in a sense by making us ignorant of different cultures and social classes with in America. Davis probably felt threatened by Tyre because he has seen a black angry character somewhere in television committing a crime or becoming over aggressive and murdering someone. This is a role that is played by many African Americans, and a stereotype that us Americans are learning about and assuming that they are all like this.

Since this is reality television, one just can't say that there is an intended message because everything is candid, however there is a reason that the producers decided to put this situation on the show. The message that I learned from this particular incident is that I can just be influenced by the stereotypes that pop culture feeds to me. I need to be open to what people are really like and not be ignorant of others and the situations that they may be in as everyone is characterized into some sort of stereotype.

Marxism and Hegemony vs The Real World

Marxism, created by Karl Marx, is an ideology that came about during the second industrial revolution in Europe. Marx noticed how the families with in the working class in the factories were being exploited by the factory owners who were taking advantage of the capitalist system during the industrial revolution. Marx's idea was the idea that there should be a working class uprising against the factory owners. It is the belief that the economy should control everything, not those with the money power. Looking at popular culture from this economic sense, both population controls the price of goods and services through their demand. They consume the product based on its popularity. The more popular, the more demand for the product to be consumed, and allowing for the price to become more expensive. This then leads to a sense of status that a person belongs to if they own this more expensive product.

Hegemony, another ideology that deals with social aspects in a Marxist way, that I am not very familiar with at all so I am going to define it through pop culture as best as I can. Many things in popular culture can be taken out of context. When popular culture, started becoming "popular" as globalization increased, ideologies, brand names, and styles increasingly became double sided. Today, the popularity of products and goods are driven by both the population and the business owners. Something today can become very popular from with in the middle class population as people influence each other what is "cool" and what is not. Something can also become very popular today with the drive of the corporation owners. They have the ability to force a product to become popular through advertisement and marketing. Once a few people accept it from the population, the product has the chance to become apart of popular culture. There is a "spontaneous consent" from the culture.

In both a sense of Marxism and hegemony, The Real World series went from just another show on television to one of the most talked about television shows for teens on television. In the beginning of the series, the Real World house was big, but it wasn't "hooked up." Now, one of the most important aspects of each season, is the location of where it takes place, how big and stocked the house is with indoor pools and hot tubs, and the kinds of jobs that the cast mates get to experience. None of this is even remotely close to real life. The demographic that the show is supposed to attract would never be able to live in the types of houses that these cast mates get to live in.

Selling the Show

One of the ways that The Real World Denver is advertised is the official website for The Real World Denver (http://www.mtv.com/ontv/dyn/realworld-season18/series.jhtml) which is also posted as one of the links on this blog. The website has a professional picture right in the middle with all of the cast mates in it posing. There are tons of links that lead to various things such as profiles of each cast member, pictures from the episodes, and there are even old episodes available to be seen on the website. There is also something called the after show, where after each episode, a cast member is interviewed more in depth about an issue that occurred in one of the recent episodes. I think that the reason that they have all of this information available and extra interviews is so that the fan base can continue to research about the characters personal lives. Some fans are so hungry for more information and drama from the show that the website gets them even more involved. It is also a great resource for those who have never seen the show before. They are able to go onto the website and learn more about each stereotypical cast member and past episodes so that when they see the television schedule of the show at the bottom of the page, they are able to understand what is happening the first episode that they watch.

I think that sometimes society today is so bored with their own daily routines that they feel the need to indirectly be apart of someone else's lives. One of the links that is currently on the website includes the Denver cast mate's favorite music videos. If someone, like my friend, identifies with one of the characters in their daily life, then they may become influenced by that person with things that they are interested in, in order to be more like them. There is also a message board available for fans to be able to discuss the events occurring in the episodes and their reactions to how the cast members have been acting. One issue that I noticed that came up a few times, was Brooke's issue of being way too "girly" for the job that they must perform during this season out in the wilderness.

As for the appearance of the website, there is a black background with boxes being white. Any advertisement and movement on the sides or even in the background is also dark allowing the main focus to be on The Real World pictures and links. In the top, left corner, however there is a video that is going on with sound and everything that highlights other reality television shows that are on the MTV network. MTV is then allowed to advertise some of their other shows for the reality television fanatics that watch The Real World Denver.

Discussing with a friend

My friend is a fan of MTV’s The Real World Series and religiously watches the current season as the 7 strangers live together in Denver. She relates her daily life to the drama that occurs on the show the way that she is with her friends, roommates, and her boys. On the current season, she is most like Coli. I guess you could say that she sees her self as the typical sorority girl. She likes to party and always has some sort of story to tell about her dramatic life. Like Coli, she is the current president of her sorority. When we were discussing how she relates her life to Coli’s she talked about her like they were good friends. When I pointed that out to her, another issue about pop culture came up in conversation: everyone talks about celebrities, television characters, and movie characters as if they know them and are in their circle of friends. And it is so true. We were actually talking about the Cameron and Justin breakup and how devastated we were that they had because they seemed like a great couple. Once we got back on The Real World subject, she mentioned that she has watched every Real World season since she was 12. Apparently The Real World did have some sort of influence on her teenage years once she thought about it. She learned a lot about sexual relationships, gay relationships, and what the bar scene was all about. Even though she says that she has learned from the show, she feels as though she has been cheated because the characters in the show are hand picked and fit some form of a stereotype. She even mentioned that in the current Denver season, before Davis came out and said that he was gay, Brooke said that she was disappointed that there was no gay person in the house. In a sense, she had actually stereotyped herself and the rest of her cast mates in the house. My friend did mention, however that this particular season is not nearly as popular as many of the previous ones. She thinks this is because there are so many other reality television shows that people can watch now, that the repetition of drama in a house of 7 strangers from season to season has become old. She also thinks that because the job that the Denver cast mates have to do is not nearly as exciting as some of the jobs in the past have been, such as the party promoters in the Los Vegas season. The Real World for her used to be her life, and it was all that her and her friends would talk about in high school. Now it just seems to be a habit or just something that is apart of her usual schedule.

Another's perspective

So that I can get some insite on what others think about the concept of The Real World, specifically the current season taking place in Denver, I am going to ask one of my friends who wishes to remain anonymous what she thinks. A few issues that I am going to address is out of the Denver cast, who she thinks she is most like, whether or not she thinks that person is "acting" on the show, and if she had the chance would she consider becoming a member of the Denver cast. I am also going to ask her how she feels about the stereotyping that went on when choosing the Denver cast and to compare them to previous seasons. When it comes to the whole reality television popular culture influences, I am going to ask her whether or not she thinks that this particular show or if any other reality shows affect influence her daily life.