“Reality show” seems to be a relative term these days, because what passes as reality on television isn’t even in the same zip code as most people's lives. In order for a reality show to be effective, in terms of viewership, there must be defined parameters or unspoken rules that govern the “reality” world. And if one is to truly be integrated into its world, one must accept these limitations. This is why questions like “where are these kids’ parents?” or “don’t these children ever go to school?,” if asked in the presence of a frequent Laguna Beach viewer, will be met with the rolling of eyes, and noises of disgust. Of course their parents aren’t around, of course they don’t go to school; this is Laguna Beach …duh!! Occasionally a parent might wander through a scene, say a few inconsequential lines, and then disappear, but for the most part these teens are left to their own devices (Cabo, Cabo, Cabo!!).

Having parents who actually parent would bring the constructed world of Laguna Beach crashing down. These kids would then be seen doing things real teens do, fight with their parents, slam doors with cries of “That’s sooo unfair!!” and generally do normal teen things, and who would want to watch that? Most of the viewers of Laguna Beach are either teenagers or the parents of teenagers—why watch what they just experienced twenty minutes ago and will probably experience twenty minutes from now? These rules allow for the show to be entertaining on the most superficial and vacuous levels imaginable.

What the viewer gets out of watching an episode of Laguna Beach is a feeling of moral superiority, intellectual superiority and most importantly that they are just better people than the brat pack of Laguna Beach. When the average viewer witnesses a spoiled, indulged, BMW driving, credit card toting, seventeen year old make out with her friend’s boyfriend, they cheer. They are filled with thoughts like “I would never do that,” “What a tramp.” Etc. Her station in life automatically makes her detested, but hating someone just because they’re rich isn’t acceptable, thus her disgusting behavior gives us all a “legitimate” reason to hate her. And then there is the friend—well of course, having your best friend make out with your boyfriend stinks, but the viewers at home are given the opportunity to congratulate themselves about how much smarter they are than she: “It’s totally obvious, he’s a complete jerk, she should have seen it coming.”

The Laguna Beach world only allows for events and situations as superficial as these because anything darker or more emotionally involved would ask things from the viewer that they most certainly did not tune in for. For example, there would never be a situation in which one of the characters became a victim of domestic violence. The audience would then be asked to feel for a character on a deeper level, thus robbing them of the satisfaction of hating them. The carefully fabricated world of Laguna Beach is what makes it a successful reality show; it allows the show a capacity for entertainment.

*A Concerned Viewer Against The Cancellation Of Good Shows

Although most people would be timid to admit their strong addiction to
reality TV, there are a few people who have not succumbed to the reality show based television culture that America has become. Reality shows have slowly taken over most television programming and even the worst ones are still sometimes unbelievably addicting.

To some, the infamous Laguna Beach of MTV is one of those horrible new reality shows that plays up the drama and over-glamorizes lives of California teenagers. However, to others, it is a cult favorite that will never be missed on Monday nights. Either way, Laguna Beach has developed a distinctive reality show phenomenology that sets it apart from many other reality shows, but also still lumps it into the general reality category.

One of the most distinctive parts of Laguna Beach is that from the first
shot of each episode, it automatically places the viewer within a panoramic shot of a beautiful landscape. Everything after the various establishing shots of the ocean, hills, quaint shopping/dining areas and the lavish homes, forces the viewer into instant glamour. Paired with the attractive cast and the expensive accessories, the show suddenly places the audience in what California loving pop-culture considers the epitome of cool. Suddenly, the reality of the show doesn’t seem like reality at all, but instead like a movie set paradise that the viewer longs for, as opposed to the average lifestyle in an uneventful town. So, what seems to be a show based on lives of real people turns into almost a movie with fictional characters. Even the way the program is shot and the use of various editing techniques makes it feel less like low budget reality and more like pricey television programming. This happens to play well off of the ritzy and dramatic lifestyles of the cast members as well.

Another fascinating part of watching or experiencing Laguna Beach that adds to its phenomenology would be the placement of the “nametags”. The tags are there to indicate reoccurring cast members and those that don’t appear as often. This helps to establish the cast to the audience, but over time it almost places the viewer within the cast itself. The nametags allow the audience member to learn the names of each person on the show and ultimately know everyone’s name by heart. By doing this, at some point, the viewer feels almost like he/she knows each of these people, because the tags make things personal. They are there to identify, but also to allow the viewer to connect. Eventually, the viewer seems to become one with those apart of the cast, watching and also knowing, almost a God-like figure.

And lastly, like many other reality shows, Laguna promises the watching of endless reruns on weekends and late at night. Because, although Kristen (the narrator) recounts the previous events at the beginning of each episode, it is often hard to watch and enjoy an episode without knowing what has happened in the past. Therefore, MTV capitalizes on open-air time by placing earlier episodes, so those frustrated by not being up to date will be able to catch up with the drama on almost any weekend. This adds to the show’s phenomenology because it forces interested viewers into repetitive watching, aidding in the addictive quality of the show.

Huge houses and beautiful high school girls color the canvas of the reality television series Laguna Beach, but what does this mean for the viewer? The question of what the viewer in general expects and receives from a text like Laguna Beach is good subject matter for any reader-oriented criticism. Closely analyzing how the viewer is positioned by "The Real Orange County" as a text reveals a lot about the intentions of the show. To study the text is only to study the text as it is experienced by the viewer. This experience is categorized by a flow of signs and structures that the viewer subconsciously decodes in order to make meaning of the text. In the case of Laguna Beach, this decoding reveals a question that is the driving force behind the text: who do you want to “hook-up” with this week?

The structure of Laguna Beach creates an atmosphere in which the viewer is faced with a choice. The syntagmatic structure of the show is focused on repetition. This structure is then marked by a variety of paradigm shifts. Several consecutive scenes depict the characters of the show packing suitcases; however, each scene depicts different characters. This can be seen in several ways. Much like the packing of suitcases, different groups of characters are presented arriving at a hotel in a van, entering the club, and leaving the hotel in a similar fashion. Another example of this is the consistent presentation of drama unfolding at a different house each time, marked “So-and-So’s” house. This structure inevitably forces the viewer to compare the characters with one another. What is it that the viewer is comparing? The “hook-up-ness” of the characters. This comparison seems to be the context of the entire show at the level of narrative. Who is going to hook-up with who? The statement is actually made at several points by characters in the show.

If voyeurism is the act of someone watching a person and receiving pleasure from watching until the person is in a completely vulnerable state, then reality television is the perversion of voyeurism. Reality television perverts voyeurism by having the person that is being watched become completely aware that they are being watched, but rather than trying to hide themselves or try to cover up their vulnerable state, the person being watched reveals their vulnerable state in order to create a sense for the voyeur that they are part of an exclusive club that the person being watch has created.

One program that creates this "exclusive club" feeling for the voyeur is
Laguna Beach. The show is supposedly themed around the crazy, highly drama-filled lives of about a half dozen extremely rich kids living in Southern California. In all actuality, the real reason why anyone watches the show is not for the drama that happens between the kids on the show, but rather to feel like they are being included in a part of the exclusive rich Southern California kids' club. In the opening scene, it is very important to note that the kids are packing to go on vacation. As they are packing, the viewer is able to see a closet overfilled with colorful designer-looking clothes. By being able to see the vast amount of clothes in their closet, the viewer is quick to start feeling like they are part of an exclusive club because they are seeing the inside of the character's room—usually considered private; something the viewer would only see if they were close friends with the character. It is important to note that we can even see into the character's closet which is the most private part of the bedroom. In real life, we do not get to know someone by looking into their closet and seeing what type of clothes they have. Instead we only see the closets of people we are very close with. Going into someone’s closet is, in a strange way, a violation of a private vulnerable area because it reveals the objects which cover us up both literally and figuratively. Looking into a closet can reveal what someone might have been like at one point in their life. If we looked into someone’s closet and found extra wide large jeans, but knew the person to be slender, we would immediately know just by seeing the oversize jeans that this person could have once been overweight. By having one of the opening shots on Laguna Beach be a closet full of clothes reveals that the kids want the viewer to be a close member of their tight-knit club and that they feel comfortable revealing what is in their closet.

The sense of revealing goes beyond just showing their closets in the
opening shots of the episode. The creators of Laguna Beach are aware of the exclusive and voyeuristic purpose of the show and literally amplify this sense of exclusiveness in their choice of editing techniques. When the characters are at public places such as a beach resort (on the "Cabo, Cabo Cabo" episode), the creators choose to use an extreme wide shot of the beach, then cut to a medium shot of the Laguna Beach kids. The extreme wide shot gives the viewer the feeling that it is the only beach resort in Cabo and that when they cut back to the kids, the viewer is reminded that they are getting to be included in the Southern California rich kid club for a half hour. Another choice of editing that creates the sense of exclusiveness is a cut showing the kids going to the same night club every night that they are in Cabo. By showing them going to the exact same night club (It was called Roxx) the viewer gets the feeling that they too are admitted to the most exclusive club in Cabo. If not for the rich kids' club, the viewer never would have gotten in.

Overall, if anyone really wanted to watch a dramatic show about rich white kids in Southern California, they could by watching The O.C. Instead, the viewers of Laguna Beach choose to watch the show in order to feel like they are temporarily members of this particular rich kids' club. In all actuality, this "exclusive club" is true for any reality TV show, from Miami Ink, which makes the viewer feel like a member of the “bad-ass” tattoo club, to The Apprentice, which makes the viewer feel like a member of the quick-thinking fast-paced business person's club. Exclusive voyeurism is the purpose of all reality television. If it was not, then who would want to watch it.

They string their emotions together to give a continuous illusion of reality. I take photographs of reality and then cut them up so as to produce emotions… I am not a realist, I am a materialist. I believe that material things, that matter gives us the basis of all our sensations. I get away from realism by going to reality.
                                         --Berger quoting Eisenstein, p. 95

The illusion of reality is what “Reality TV” sells. The shows bill the “reality” as something fundamentally different than a sitcom, soap opera, news show or court TV. At the beginning of Laguna Beach there is a real disclaimer (these events and people are real blah, blah…) to tell the viewer why this drama is different—not only different, but better because it is real. Well, for the people in the shows I suppose, given that they are living breathing cognizant beings, in a way it is real. They are really in a show about them. But I won’t even comment on the complications of “reality” on that level, only to say that the presence of a camera changes people’s behavior, because they know they are on camera. This knowledge can alter speech patterns, gestures, style and any facet of a person’s personality that they might want to alter to create the character they want to be seen as. For the viewer, the reality presented is no kind of reality. Reality TV is just a variation of the beast. The elements of drama and emotion of the shows are no different than the “fake” TV of yesteryear. The actors in it just happen to be actual people with a TV identity.

One common technique used in reality TV is the “confessional” camera. A character sits in a room alone with a camera and comments on an element of the show, such as a scene, other character or their feelings. This is supposed to be their real feelings about real events and real people, and ends up being the equivalent to gossip or their constructed reality. In an episode of Miami Ink, Nuñez has his mom tattoo “mom” on his ankle. During this scene, Ami, using the “confessional” camera technique, is cut into the scene. He is not present in the scene as far as the viewer can see, but yet he is placed there with the use of montage. This use of montage alters reality and constructs a connection that was not originally there. Ami comments on how Nuñez must feel and what connections he has with that. This social connection is real inasmuch as this real person is saying something to a camera about people he knows. But it is an artificial connection in that it is placed in a scene to create emotion. The viewer feels as though they are getting inside info. It is the reality the camera creates for the viewer. The camera brings out Ami’s thoughts on a scene that the camera is constructing for us. It is not the reality of the scene or the people in the scene, and it is most definitely not the reality of Ami talking to a camera. We get pieces of these realties, put together for us to create the show/viewer reality. This reality is what we, as viewers, are led to feel and think about these characters' “realities.”

Music is also a part of montage that greatly influences how viewers receive a given bit of information. In the same episode of Miami Ink, a father comes into the shop to get a tattoo that will memorialize his dead baby. Besides the constructed reality of “customers” walking into the shop randomly with heartbreaking tales of woe, this story is constructed with shades of heightened emotion. While this father tells his unfortunate story, slow sorrowful piano music plunks away in the background. It is obvious that the music is not playing in the shop, because had it been, it would have been terribly rude, wrong and misplaced. But added in, it heightens the sorrow felt by the viewer. One would have to be a heartless bastard to not feel something (even if superficially). The viewer is asked by the show to cry, to feel. If we feel, then we most likely come back. The music in a way implores us not to abandon this man and wife in their time of pain. We, like the tattoo artists, are there to help them carry-on. We are good people. We are watching TLC, learning and feeling good.

MTV on the other hand deals in feeling catty and dirty, as we are let in on the social life of Laguna Beach. This show must think we are white or that we have aspirations of being white. By "white," I mean rich, delusional, under the impression that there is some innate untouchable power to them. The show assumes we, as viewers, either want to be these people or want to know these people. The show provides this opportunity for us. We can “know” the real Laguna Beach. In a scene between the only brunette, Alex, and one of the many blondes, subtitles are provided for us. The dialogue is so real that it isn’t clear what is being said and we want to know so bad that we are willing to (no don’t say it…) read. When Alex says “Shit's gonna hit the fan” The show wants to make sure we got that juicy piece of dialogue. Its presence at the bottom of the screen make us anticipate that shit hitting the fan and splattering all over these good looking kids, so we watch on to see the consistency of that shit. The sweet torture of anticipation would not be as vivid if we didn’t catch what she just said.

Subtitles are also provided in a dance club. This scene has masses of blonde, half dressed girls and sexy boys churning in the dark, outlined occasionally by the pop of the strobe light. In this scene, I frankly could not distinguish the characters that we are to be following from the clones around them. With all these beautiful people in one place, I was confused. Our guide the camera keeps us on task. We know that the wiggling body in the camera’s gaze must be one of our characters because the camera is on them. The presence of the camera erases the anonymity (a reality of a club environment) and forces us to put these characters together as they are shown to us. The camera creates drama. Why would it be there if there was no drama. The camera eye only follows drama. For instance when Alex confronts Jason on the basketball court, they break away from the group and the camera goes with them. The camera shows the viewer their “reality” at the moment because it is the one with the drama. The group doesn’t matter because the camera is not on them. The viewer accepts the reality that the camera gives them because it is dramatic not realistic. In TV land, reality TV is just business as usual with a disclaimer of reality.

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Last update: 1/22/2005