On Monday, to celebrate the official publication of Reality Bites Back, I blogged the launch of Reality Rehab with Dr. Jenn, a book trailer and satirical web series spoofing — and then liberating — reality TV’s stock characters through media literacy therapy.

Monday also saw the debut of Webisode 1: The Desperate Bachelorette (see below), and yesterday we met “The Angry Black Woman” in Reality Rehab Webisode 2, also below.

Today, it’s time to reveal Reality Rehab Webisode 3: The “Real” Housewife. Although she doesn’t know what “homogeneous” means, she explains — while sipping copious martinis, naturally — that her friendships are actually much more supportive than it seems on Bravo, whose producers instructed her to focus her on-air conversations on “More brand names, less deep thought!” Her media literacy therapy includes a case study in Frankenbite editing–a must-see for every reality TV fan!

Four more Reality Rehab videos will roll out over the course of the next week, including The Slutty Bitch, The Top Model, The Douchebag Dude, and The Gangsta Guy.

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On Monday, to celebrate the official publication of Reality Bites Back, I blogged the launch of Reality Rehab with Dr. Jenn, a book trailer and satirical web series spoofing — and then liberating — reality TV’s stock characters through media literacy therapy.

Today, in Reality Rehab Webisode 2, “The Angry Black Woman” starts out as a screaming, cursing, threatening mess, just as so many women of color have been framed on Flavor of Love, The Apprentice, and America’s Next Top Model. But after intensive media literacy therapy, she explains how producers manipulated her persona–turns out, she’s actually a compassionate hospice nurse who never wanted Flav in the first place!

Watch the brilliant Allison Jones unpack one of reality TV’s most insidious forms of racial typecasting:

Close to 700 people have watched the trailer in the first day and a half, and it was picked up by the Vancouver Sun and half a dozen other Canadian news outlets. Blog it, tweet it, share it

on Facebook, Tumblr… let’s spread the laughs around:

Welcome to Reality Bites Blog, which picks up where Reality Bites Back: The Troubling Truth About Guilty Pleasure TV leaves off.

I’ll be posting regularly with news and analysis of current reality shows, stars, and producers, with my usual recipe of 2-parts-critique, 1-part-snark. Want to dish about your love/hate relationship with Jersey Shore’s Snooki, the latest American Idol judge or contestant, or that reality scandal Joel McHale snarked about on The Soup? Come back soon — this’s all on tap.

Upcoming topics include the despicable planned reality show (and potential snuff-film-of-the-week) about US troops working to diffuse bombs in Afghanistan, the danger and exploitation inherent in this misguided domestic violence reality show pitch, and, on a lighter note… which NBC, FOX and MTV series did ABC cannibalize to make their new low-rent Bachelor knockoff show, Bachelor Pad?

Reality Bites Blog will also take on whatever ridiculous controversy is in the headlines at the moment. If any network is inane enough to buy Levi Johnston’s made-for-reality-TV Wasilla mayoral campaign show, trust me, I’m on it. (On the critique, I mean. Not the show. Can you imagine?) The next time some misogynist dad pretends his kid floated away in a balloon when he was really hidden in an attic (yet nearly every news outlet in the country rushes to report the hoax as fact), this blog will be firmly tethered to sanity. You’re welcome.