After reading this article I realize, even more than before, that MTV puts the image of whatever they choose of the cast members in the viewers heads. When they cast the show they try to find the most diverse group of people to live in the same house with each other to see how everyone will respond to each other. And by diverse, they don't just mean different races or ethnicity's, they mean attitudes, personalities and backgrounds. MTV is able to portray anybody they way they want and they are able to do this with the start of picking the cast. In the article it says that they have 3 to 5 months of footage and they cut it down to an 11 hour series. With that much time and cutting it down to that little, they can take one little outburst from anyone that happens in those 3 to 5 months and put it in their 11 hour series to make it look like this one person is a violent person.
MTV portrays their black cast members on the real world as having random outbursts of anger and being unpredictable. In the show the other cast members might blow up about something just as much as the black members but it most viewers don't see it like that because most viewers are 'white folk' and and built angry black man might be a bit scary to those viewers. I the article it says that the cast members that are most afraid of the black males in the house when they get angry are the European American women. I think that this might have something to do with the fact that they are not around many black men often so in their minds they have the stereotype about the black men that most 'white folk' sadly have.
I'm not saying that all of these black cast members don't have anger problems or are unpredictable, sure a few of them probably do and that is why MTV cast them into the real world. But even if one of the black cast members is really not like that, I fell like MTV tries to portray it that way because that's how most viewers see them in the head before they start watching the show. I think it is wrong that MTV portrays every black male on the real world like this, but they are smart for doing so because it does get them the ratings they want and makes them more money just like the foxwoods casino. It may be wrong but it's good for business.
1. Do you think that if MTV portrayed a black cast member as sweet and innocent without any outbursts, there would be less viewers?
2. Do you think that after they cast the people for the real world they know how they are going to portray them even before they start filming?
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