VIDEO: “Reality Rehab” Webisode 3: The “Real” Housewife


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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VIDEO: “Reality Rehab” Webisode 2: The Angry Black Woman


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:


RSVP, New York: Reality Bites Back reading Nov 4, PARTY & Tweet-up Nov 10! (And more.)


Hey New Yorkers: are you looking for something fun and politically relevant to do after the election dust dies down? (Yes, I’m voting today…and so should you. Soapbox moment over.) Well, here are two options for you — I hope to see you at one or both of these exciting events.

Option #1: the intellectually stimulating choice…

THURSDAY, NOV. 4: My first official book reading for Reality Bites Back!

Time: 7pm (through 8:30 or 9-ish)

Place: Bluestockings, 172 Allen St, Manhattan (nearest subway: F to 2nd Ave) (212) 777-6028

Co-hosted by WAM!NYC (the local chapter of Women, Action & Media) and Women In Media & News (the media analysis, education and advocacy org I direct), and supported by

Paradigm Shift

(scan down page).

Why is reality television built on such blatant gender and race stereotypes? Why are women and people of color represented so harmfully, and with so much bias, in popular culture? What is “Frankenbite” editing, how many hours of tape are shot for every hour of reality TV aired, and how much cheaper is it to produce a reality show than a scripted program? Is it true that networks are simply “giving people what they want,” or is reality TV really the result of media consolidation, media economics, and stealth advertising?


VIDEO LAUNCH: Reality Rehab with Dr. Jenn


Today, in conjunction with the official release of Reality Bites Back, I’m

excited to debut a satirical book trailer and webisode series, “Reality Rehab with Dr. Jenn“– where all your favorite reality TV stock characters come to get deprogrammed:

In addition to the trailer, I’ll be rolling out seven webisodes, one for each character. The first webisode follows The Desperate Bachelorette (modeled after shows such as The Bachelor, Tough Love, Married By America, Joe Millionaire and more). When we first meet her, she embodies reality TV’s stereotype about single women as weepy, pathetic losers who can never possibly be happy or successful without husbands, mouthing lines pulled directly from actual quotes from some of these shows, such as “I don’t want to die alone!” and “I would be a servant to him!” By the end of the webisode, her media literacy therapy has helped her realize that, in fact, she has a full life, a great career and a lot going for her, and she can wait for a truly fulfilling relationship, rather than grasping for romance with any randy dude who’ll snog her for fifteen minutes on national TV.


Denver Post: Reality Bites Back is “an entertaining and sharp-eyed takedown”


In a review today titled “Reality TV’s messages get a smackdown from feminist critic’s book,” the Denver Post’s Joanne Ostrow calls Reality Bites Back “an entertaining and sharp-eyed takedown” of reality television that “unpacks the political and commercial agendas behind the genre.” In this, the first review in a major U.S. newspaper, Ostrow writes, “Pozner has delivered a savvy, not-too-academic analysis of a form that’s not a just fad — and one that’s eating up more and more of the TV schedule”:

What do you see when women volunteer to be made over, dressed, styled or surgically enhanced to be “hot” on TV?

What do you see when a bevy of single women fight over a bachelor they’ve never met, competing in front of multiple cameras for a ring from the handsome prince?

When Jennifer Pozner eyes reality TV, she doesn’t see simple time-wasters or guilty pleasures. She sees a retrograde political force, “a pop-cultural backlash against women’s rights and social progress.”

Pozner, a feminist media critic and founder/director of Women in Media and News, has written an entertaining and sharp-eyed takedown of the form, titled “Reality Bites Back: The Troubling Truth About Guilty Pleasure TV” (Seal Press, $16.95).


ColorLines on race and reality TV: from cultural transgression to minstrel shows


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.”

Which


EVENT TONIGHT: Sept 21, 7pm, Manhattan, Kansas: “Project Brainwash: Why Reality TV Is Bad for Women (…and men, people of color, the economy, love, sex, and sheer common sense!)


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).