Event Reminder: “$h*t My TV Says: Revealing Gender & Race in Reality TV & Pop Culture”

…an evening with Jennifer L. Pozner, author of Reality Bites Back: The Troubling Truth About Guilty Pleasure TV, and entertainment journalist Janice Rhoshalle Littlejohn, contributor to the L.A. Times, TV Guide, Essence, Emmy magazine and more. Moderated by Morgane Veronique Richardson of Refuse the Silence.

WHAT: Los Angeles Book Launch for Reality Bites Back

WHEN: Nov 17, 7:30 – 9:30

WHERE: Stories Books and Cafe, 1716 Sunset Blvd. Echo Park, CA 90026

Why are reality TV’s stock characters (The Desperate Bachelorette, The Angry Black Woman, The Douchebag Dude, etc.) so regressive? What are Frankenbites, and other behind-the-scenes open secrets in the reality TV industry? Why does pop culture culture reduce women and people of color to such limiting stereotypes? Find out in the town that creates them at the L.A. book launch for Reality Bites Back! Expect critical media commentary, revealing insights about gender, race and pop culture — and lots of laughs.

Free. Lively conversation among the presenters, with ample time for audience Q&A, followed by Jennifer L. Pozner signing her book, Reality Bites Back. And after: schmoozing. What could be better?

Reality Bites Back officially hits bookstores today [!!] and I can’t tell you how excited I am. You know who else is excited about the book? Canadians. To mark the official publication date, let’s take a look at the warm reception Reality Bites Back is getting from the Canadian media.

• Excerpt: The November issue of Elle Canada magazine includes “The Surreal Life…Reality TV: Harmful fluff or a humorous escape?” (PDF). This three-page feature — teased on the cover — comes complete with photos from Flavor of Love, The Hills, The Real Housewives of Orange County, The Bachelorette, The Newlyweds, and more. The excerpt focuses on reality TV’s tropes about women discussed in chapter three of the book, “Bitches and Morons and Skanks, Oh My! What Reality TV Teaches Us About Women.” (Please send a letter to the editor of Elle Canada thanking them for running this story and asking for more pieces examining women and the media! Email elleletters@ellecanada.com.)

• Column: On Saturday, Leah McLaren, columnist for The Globe and Mail, a leading Canadian newspaper, wrote:

“If you want proof of what a long way we haven’t come, just check out an episode of The Bachelor.

30-second-action: Do you think challenging representations of gender and race in entertainment media should be a crucial aspect of media literacy — and of a media justice agenda?

I do. (That’s what there’s a “Fun with Media Literacy” chapter in Reality Bites Back, and section on this site.) And media literacy advocate, novelist and media producer Sofia Quintero agrees. We’re excited to present this session at the 2011 National Conference on Media Reform — but we’ll only be able to do so if you VOTE FOR THIS WORKSHOP, BY THE END OF THE DAY MONDAY, OCT. 25 to make it to the NCMR program:

Keeping It Unreal: Decoding Gender, Race and Reality TV—A Media Literacy Workshop

Weepy, white Cinderella-wannabes in network-assembled harems compete for the attentions of one horny “Prince Charming” on dating shows such as “The Bachelor” (ABC), “Joe Millionaire” (FOX), and “For Love or Money” (NBC), whimpering that their lives will never be complete without husbands. On cable series such as VH1’s “Flavor of Love,” “Real Chance of Love” and “For the Love of Ray J,” scantily-clad women of color are depicted as real-life music video vixens, providing lap dances, sexual favors, and maid services to “win” dates with Black bachelors cast as modern day minstrels, thugs, and buffoons.

Today at ColorLines Magazine, Neelanjana Banerjee looks at race, representation and reality TV and asks, as per the story’s headline: “Is Reality TV a Revolution for Race or the New Minstrel?”

A smart, nuanced and well-reported piece, Banerjee notes that:

“A series of NAACP reports have tracked the dismal representation of African Americans and other people of color on network television for the past decade. In 2000, the NAACP called for a boycott of the four major networks because none of their 26 new shows featured an actor of color in a lead or starring role. In 2006, the NAACP reported the number of minority actors of any sort in prime-time had declined to barely 300. In its most recent report, however, the NAACP declared reality TV ‘the only bright spot’ in the industry.”

The NAACP could arrive at such a conclusion because, as Banerjee writes, “Today, the mainstream dating shows, such as ‘The Bachelor,’ primarily ignore people of color. But on competition shows and on cable networks, characters of color are much more likely to show up.”

Today on CBC Radio, I spoke with Day 6 host Brent Bambury about the suicide of  Joseph Cerniglia, a participant on Gordon Ramsey’s Fox reality show, Kitchen Nightmares. [Listen to the interview at the link above, 17:38-24:05]

When the troubled restaurant owner was trying to prove himself on Ramsey’s show, taped in 2007, the vitriolic celebrity chef told him, “Your business is about to f**king swim down the Hudson.” Last week, his body was found in the Hudson, his death ruled a suicide.

If this was a scripted film, critics would say that connection was a bit too on-the-nose.

This marks the second Ramsey reality alum to take their own life. The first was Rachel Brown, who shot and killed herself in 2007 after appearing on Fox’s Hell’s Kitchen in 2006.

As I told Day 6, I do not blame producers or networks for these suicides–but I also do not consider them shocking, in the least. There should be some accountability from networks for the dangerous game they play when they actively seek to cast just the sort of personalities one would assume would be viewed as untenable for shows in which people live together in high-stress environments. And while not all reality show participants are unstable, even those who start off even-keeled often face taping conditions that are designed to break them down, including: sleep deprivation, limited food, ever-present alcohol, constant surveillance, isolation from the outside world, no communication with friends and family beyond sporadic recorded conversations–all of which have been used by intelligence agencies as elements of torture.

Quote of the day:

“All Scalia is saying is women aren’t persons.” [Especially on The Bachelor.]
– Stephen Colbert, The Colbert Report, 9/29/10

I have nothing but love for this “The Word” segment about “all the special rights that minorities are asking for these days… if we keep giving them rights, there will be fewer rights left for us. That’s just math…”:

Thank you to the fantastic students, faculty and staff of Kansas State, who turned out in droves for my talk Tuesday night, “Project Brainwash: Why Reality TV is Bad for Women (…and men, people of color, the economy, love, sex, and sheer common sense).”

As noted in this lovely article in the Kansas State Collegian, the 660-seat hall where I spoke exceeded capacity. The overflow room broadcasting the lecture upstairs in real-time sat approximately 433 people: also packed. Which led to my favorite tweet of the night:

@KSUMatt: KSU Union Project Brainwash by @JennPozner #RealityBitesBack #kstate we need an overflow room for the overflow room!

…and so a third room was added (haven’t heard yet how many people ended up there).

Think makes more than 1,000 K-Staters excited about feminist media criticism. Who knew Manhattan, Kansas would be the site of the largest audience for any media literacy event I’ve done in ten years of lecturing?

KANSAS EVENT: Tonight is my first talk on reality TV for the fall semester (calendar here), and I’m happy to kick of WIMN’s multimedia lecture tour to Kansas State.

WHAT: Project Brainwash!: Why Reality TV Is Bad for Women (…and men, people of color, the economy, love, sex, <em>and sheer damn common sense!)

WHERE: Kansas State University, Forum Hall

WHEN: Tonight, Sept 21, 7pm

I’m excited to bring a critical conversation about gender, race and advertising in reality television to a campus that seems extremely engaged in ongoing discussions about other aspects of reality TV based on their “common read” book, The Hunger Games, a dystopian young adult novel about a world in which one powerful Capital city forces all its districts to send two of its children to a televised death match where only one makes it out alive. Picture Survivor, but with every 12-18 -year-old contestant out to slit your throat. And where Jeff Probst is secretly hoping you won’t starve to death… but only because getting viciously slaughtered by one of your peers would play better on TV.
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Tonight’s talk offers a brief glimpse at the issues I delve into in Reality Bites Back: The Troubling Truth About Guilty Pleasure TV (now available for pre-order).

In November, just in time for those all-important Nielsen sweeps (and in the same month as Reality Bites Back will be published), E! will debut Bridalplasty, a headline-baiting reality show combining the desperation and body dysmorphia of Fox’s cosmetic surgery competition The Swan with the unbridled hyperconsumption hawked by wedding industrial complex series such as TLC Say Yes to the Dress, and WeTV’s Bridezillas and My Fair Wedding with David Tutera.

Dismally derivative, Bridalplasty will pit future brides who “want the dream wedding AND the dream body to go along with it” and “are willing to do whatever it takes to beat the competition in order to get that perfection” against one another in wedding planning challenges. According to E!’s press release, each week the “lucky” winner of each challenge:

“will also get one piece of her dream body – going under the knife for one of the surgeries off her ‘wish list.’ The last bride standing will have the opportunity to have an extreme plastic surgery makeover and win a wedding fit for the stars where she will unveil her shocking new look for the very first time to the man that she’s about to marry.”

OK, it’s official: my summer reality TV fast (a needed respite after sending the Reality Bites Back manuscript off to my publisher) is over. To mark the occasion, I’m going to be livetweeting analysis of the season premiere of America’s next Top Model, Cycle 15 — yes, 15 — tonight at 8pm EST. (UPDATE: Full feed of the livetweeting session below.)

Long-time readers of my other blog (WIMN’s Voices, the group blog of Women In Media & News) know that I’ve monitored this series since it debuted, often to horrifying results. Not surprisingly, then, ANTM features quite often throughout Reality Bites Back, in chapters on body image, race, and product placement advertising and media economics. But the show also has the distinction of being the only reality series of the decade to get its own chapter in the book: “Ghetto Bitches, China Dolls, and Cha Cha Divas: Race, Beauty, and the Tyranny of Tyra Banks.” Let’s see if tonight gives us a glimpse why…

Send your questions, comments and snarky hashtags about gender, race, beauty, product placement, manipulation, Tyra Banks’ batshit crazy antics, and anything else ANTM-related to @jennpozner on Twitter, or post your questions to the comments section below. (You can connect to my Twitter feed by clicking on the blue “t” icon on the sidebar at the right of this page.)