To me the purpose of the Real World is to show how different people interact in a setting they are not normally use to. I know that is the main purpose of the show but as Orbe and Hopson discussed in the reading the viewers outlook on the show has became very stereotypical. I have never really been someone to watch the whole season in its entirely, but I do tend to watch parts of it from time to time. I have never really thought to myself that MTV is picking out African American in particular just to show how they interact and get along with other people. In my opinion, all the cast members of the show are "different" and in some ways weird. They all come from different backgrounds and all have different life stories. They all argue, fight, and get pissed off at each other. Like the reading pointed out, every season you will find a black male on the show, but there are also 5 or 6 other cast members. It might seem like the black males are always the ones getting in fights or arguing with other cast members, that is not always the case. I know there has been gay and lesbian cast members, black females, and all sorts of other diverse people on the show. The black men portrayed on the show probably do show sexual aggression, anger, and are violent. But all the other cast members can act in the same ways.
I have also noticed over the years watching this show, it involves a great deal of alcohol. Usually when the fighting and anger occurs is when the members of the show come back from a night at the bars and they are all trashed. Alcohol seems to play a large role on every MTV reality show, especially in the likes of The Real World and Jersey Shore. Aside from the alcohol, MTV seems to not just make a different view of African American males, but males in general. In every reality show the males are placed in a setting surrounded by good looking women and they are always tempted to try and "make a move" on the girls in the house. Until recently on Jersey Shore the men were the ones portrayed as getting drunk and doing stupid things. On Jersey Shore MTV has shown many episodes of Snookie and Jwow getting trashed and making themselves look like complete fools.
Questions:
1. Will MTV ever portray white males like this?
2. If African American males know they are being stereotyped like this, why do they continue to put themselves in these situations? Is the fame of reality TV really worth it?
I find it hard to believe that MTV would ever portray the white male as they do the black male. Minorities are much easier to stereotype that the majorities because we are not able to make negative stereotypes about ourselves.
ReplyDeleteI think that they do show both sides of black and white like I wrote in my article they had an alcohol and drug addicted white male on Real World:Hollywood but I don't think that it will ever be as severe or critical as they do about black males.
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