Reality's Josh Duggar Problem

Well, the Ashley Madison leak happened and in short order Josh Duggar was exposed as having two accounts on the site as well as an OK Cupid profile.  Needless to say, this is delightful to those of us who dislike everything famille Duggar stands for, especially given earlier revelations about Josh, the incestuous paedophile. (ineptly covered up by Mom and Pop Duggar).  But I'm a reality producer, so I'm far more preoccupied by what the story means in terms of what I do for a living than in passing judgement on someone who clearly has issues.  (Oddly enough, I find the Ashley Madison revelation somewhat comforting, as it indicates that at least his present appetites - that we are aware of - involve adults.)

When the molestation story broke, however, I was enraged.  Not at Duggar or his strangely childlike parents--as I have zero expectations where those freaks are concerned--but at TLC.  Based on my (admittedly) obsessive research regarding the abuse, the Springdale cops started investigating the matter in 2006.  This would be after TLC specials about the Duggars had aired, but before they got more specials and, ultimately, a series.  And the matter only came to the attention of the authorities because, as a result of those specials, the family was scheduled to appear on Oprah, and an anonymous individual e-mailed Oprah's producers with information about Duggar's molesting ways.  Those producers, to their infinite credit, canceled the Duggar's appearance and forwarded the info to the Dept. of Health & Human Services hotline (1.800.422.4453), which triggered a Springdale police investigation.

I'm sure that there are those who might question how reporting criminal behavior to authorities is something one should receive infinite credit for.  After all, wouldn't anyone?  Well, um, apparently not the folks at TLC.  Because it frankly beggars belief that TLC and the production company shooting the series were somehow oblivious to these charges. The anonymous e-mailer who contacted Oprah clearly had an axe to grind (let's take a moment to thank baby Jeebus for that grinder and their axe, amen), and would surely not hesitate to contact TLC with the same allegations. Additionally, the accusations against Josh were available in online forums from 2007 onwards.  Thus, unless we assume that in the year of 2007 Discovery Communications had not yet succumbed to the fiendish temptations of the interwebs (and were thus unable to receive e-mail or research their Talent online), we have no choice but to assume that someone(s) knew about it, and chose to ignore it.  

Which is why I was so pissed at TLC in particular, and the industry in general.  Because none of this surprises me.   People who work in reality television are subject to precisely zero rules of personal and professional conduct.  I have only once been given anything resembling ethical instruction on a show and that was: 

don't fuck the Talent 

That's it.  There are no rules about how far we can push the reality (like the degree to which we can fake or just plain make shit up about people); how crews should be treated (PAs on reality in particular are abused to the point where their lack of sleep actually endangers the crew members and cast they drive around); or how far we can let physical fights to develop between characters before stepping in.  The lines are beyond blurred.

Added to that, we work in a genre that celebrates freakish behavior of all kinds (freaks be good TV) and yet we have no regulations in place to address when the purely freaky becomes, you know, fucking criminal. Obviously people should always contact the cops about criminal behavior, but many won't.  We don't wanna lose our jobs or we figure someone else will deal with it or whatever.   Nor is there any incentive to do the right thing.  While Oprah's producers were empowered by their bosses (or boss lady?) to immediately put the kibosh on enablers of child abuse, TLC inspires no similar sense of empowerment.

Just take a look at their dismal response to the Duggar allegations becoming public: a half-assed statement, followed by months of hoping the whole thing would just go away, followed be a begrudging cancellation, followed by sniveling about their loss of revenue.  Oh, but on the upside, they are gifting us with this documentary special on molestation starring the parents who hid their son's abuse and starring some of his victims.  (The last time I was so mortified by a gift was December 1990 when my girlfriend's mother gave me a sailor suit for Christmas.)   I suppose it's too much to expect that a broadcaster with such a history of problematic shows would be capable of more.

Which is why we need a free-standing set of ethical guidelines.

We need a comprehensive list of dos and don'ts to illuminate the otherwise murky endeavor of producing Reality TV.  Because things get so relative it is sometimes difficult to know when you've crossed a line.  Such guidelines could be produced by people working at all levels of the industry, and signed onto at will.  And while most likely not legally binding, signing on would indicate a will to do the right thing.  An oath can be a powerful thing: those of us who have taken the Pledge for Sarah can attest to how it's changed us.  It made this hardened reality producer almost weep.

And we need to do this sooner rather than later.  Because Josh Duggar isn't the only problematic character out there.  He is just the very public tip (yeah, I said it) of an enormous iceberg.

Also, Josh Duggar's brother-in-law is my new favorite dude.

#TCA16

Human Resouces

Pivot's Human Resources has just debuted it's second season. To date the show has received largely (deserved) glowing reviews.  However, the degree to which HR is scripted seems to be the major, and frankly unimportant, issue for the reviewers.  USA Today writes:

Though rooted in reality, it's obvious that parts of Human Resources are scripted and planned, but the show doesn't attempt to hide that. 

Meanwhile, Really Late Review is less certain that the show is scripted, saying:

The fact that I couldn’t tell whether the show was real or not was clever in my opinion. Many shows are too obvious in what style they are (sitcoms feature same, staple humor and situations, while reality shows put people in extreme situations for attention seeking purposes), so I appreciated how the show had me guessing from the beginning.

And the Grey Lady herself concludes its positive review with yet another reflection on how "real" the show is:

Human Resources shows what happens when you put people on screen who have grown up with video cameras. Everyone’s comfortable, no one seems to be performing for the camera. 

Basically these reviewers would have it that a show rises or falls either on how real it is, or how craftily it addresses the fact that it isn't.  While this simplistic obsession may have been excusable back in, I don't know, 1995/6 when The Real World first broke, after over twenty-five years the time has come for a modicum more insight into the Reality genre.  And we may as well start by discussing the primary (and most flawed) assumption: that Reality is some kind of homogenous category.  It is not.  Rather it is a variety of genres (Docu-Soap, Competition, Follow Doc) that share only the fact that the participants in the show are real people playing themselves.  

Thus a review will contain comparisons between shows as diverse as Survivor (which is a Competition Reality) and Real Housewives of Atlanta (a Docu Soap) as though such comparisons were viable or even fruitful. In fact, there are as many different genres of Reality as there are of narrative, and no self-respecting reviewer of the latter would compare Film Noire to a Romantic Comedy (or even compare a Romantic Comedy, like 13 Going on 30, to a Western spoof like Blazing Saddles).  I'm trying to bring a more nuanced--read: NUANCED--insider's approach to Reality; starting with this review.

Set in a start-up recycling business, TerraCycle, and following owner Tom Szaky and his band of quirky scientists, designers and sales agents, HR has its antecedents in shows like Small Town Security (AMC - and also produced by many of the same people at Left/Right), Duck Dynasty (A&E), even The Osbournes (MTV): half hour shows that promote humor over drama.  Called Reality Sitcoms within the industry, these shows can be extremely scripted, like Duck Dynasty in which "real" people are thrown into absurd situations, or borderline Follow Docs like Small Town Security or The Osbournes.  

Now, I don't work on the show and while (full disclosure) I know and respect many of the main players behind the scenes I have no idea how scripted the show actually is.  Given my experience in Reality, however, I would say: somewhat. We have limited shooting schedules so chances are some scenes need to be scheduled and don't just fortuitously happen.  But whether the show is knowingly scripted (as USA suggests) or benefits from a great cast (as The Times asserts) is not of great interest to me. 

What makes Human Resources sui generis (and a pleasure to watch) is that it steers clear of either produced or happenstance conflict (sometimes we do actually luck into screaming fights between cast members).  Instead, it illustrates the small adjustments that are far more common in everyday life. Like, for example, the difficulty a quirky new Canadian employee Tony, encounters while adjusting to the zany environment of TerraCycle (the B Story for this episode); or how Dan and Randi manage to land (with the assistance of the team) a mid-level contract (an A Story that steers clear of the usual over-the-top Reality stakes e.g. "If we don't land this contract, the whole business is gonna go down the shitter," or what you will).  Along the way the viewer also gets some take-away about the recycling business, from TerraCycle's sometimes hilarious science team, that feels fun rather than forced.  

These are the smaller conflicts those of us who live in the everyday world can relate to, and the kind of conflict that is under-explored in Reality for exactly that reason. Those of us in the industry have long complained about the usually broadcaster-mandated fake drama/stakes that we are forced to implement in most of our shows.  This commitment to over-the-top "stakes" ultimately becomes a parody of itself in shows like the now-canceled Kimora: Life in the Fab Lane, where every single task undertaken by Ms. Simmons' long-suffering team is a matter of life or death.   


In addition to having a pretty unique show in HR, Pivot has a pretty clever and unusual ad campaign.  Basically, it wants to appeal to viewers who either don't watch Reality or, more likely, watch Reality and feel humiliated for doing so. Hence, the tagline for Human Resources is  "Takes the trash out of TV one day at a time" (which, I assume, references trashy TV like Housewives and Love and Hip Hop in addition to the recycling business TerraCycle engages in.  And if you missed that obvious diss of all Reality, Belisa Balaban EVP of Original Programming for Pivot makes it even clearer, "Human Resources is an unexpected blend of classic workplace comedy within the structure of a process-driven Science show.  It is distinctive and delightful, and it's a reality show you can feel good about watching*."  

*And also, I strongly suspect, about producing. 

You just can't say that for most shows.  We really could use a lot more Human Resources out there.  

Human Resources screens on Pivot on Fridays at 10 pm ET/PT

UnREAL: Episode 10

"You're a manipulating slut!"  Castmember Grace to Rachel.

Yes, Rachel is a manipulating slut, and we wouldn't have it any other way.  I much prefer the manipulative slut to the whiner.  Finally, Rachel's embracing her Don Draper.  I also love the fact that they have allowed the Quinn-Rachel relationship to flourish.

The show deserves all the good press it's been getting including this and this. 

In celebration of the finale of UnREAL, some background on the show it is satirizing, The Bachelor. I have never worked on the show myself, so what follows is hearsay from people who have.  

According to my sources, the similarities between the fake show Everlasting and the actual show i are startling.  While that sounds like a "No, duh!" I was actually surprised to realize the degree to which this is the case.

The first and most startling gossip I have heard is that many of the characters on UnREAL are identical to individuals that worked on The Bachelor, and many of the stories are based on real life as well.

Moving on to some issues that are of interest maybe more to those of us in the industry:

1.  Producers drinking with cast members: I was honestly skeptical about the producers drinking with cast, largely I wouldn't want to be drunk on set and generally drunk people don't make for good workers.  That being said I have worked in environments where the cast is encouraged to drink, because messy.

However, I am told that producers on The Bachelor do in fact drink with cast members (as an incentive to get the cast to drink).  Generally producers have a drink or two and then start faking that they're drinking (as the cast member continues to imbibe).  Thus, the producer may order/pour a couple of Vodka tonics, and then start just drinking tonic.

2.  The competition between producers: I found the cattiness between producers to be a bit over the top and attributed it to the soapiness of the show.  However, I am told UnREAL is pretty accurate in this regard.  Although there are no cash incentives (a creation of the show that I find particularly annoying), the producers are apparently more bitchy and competitive than I have experienced.  They just happen to compete to advance in their field and pay rent, not for a thousand bucks or some shit.

3.  Producers cannot complete an exit interview (that's the interview conducted when a cast member is eliminated) until the girl has cried.  That's apparently where all the "So I hear tell you were abused by your babysitter" shit producers role out during interviews comes in.  Obviously we pretty much always want them to cry, I guess you would have incentive to be extra evil if you couldn't leave until you did.

4.  The house layout on Everlasting is almost identical to The Bachelor set, even down to where the Control Room is in relation to the the rest of the house.

5.  This has been reported elsewhere (possibly even in relation  to coverage of the show) but the cast are often kept outside to make them cold so that they might be more inclined to cry in interview (and likely scenes).

6.  While people don't actually live on set (as Rachel does) given the hours people work on Reality in general, and competition in particular, they do spend so much time on set that they often do laundry and even do sleep on the location.  That's part of the reason the crew feels like family.

Finally, although they only ever seem to call direction to A camera (and very rarely B camera) on Everlasting, there are definitely more cameras on The Bachelor set than on Everlasting (or any set for that matter)!

So that's it for UnREAL this season.  We'll be checking in with our girls Quinn and Rachel when the show returns.  Rachel loves Quinn and we love them both!

In the meantime I'll keep posting on Reality shows and the industry in general.  So please stay tuned.

UnREAL: Episode 9

I've been growing tired of only hearing my voice here, so I'm changing things up a bit today by inviting my good friend, and former Reality cohort Paola Limon (also a big fan of UnREAL) in to discuss her experiences in the industry she fled and her feeling about UnREAL.

Ordinarily (say if this was a show I was editing) I would do a bit of setup convo, but in an effort to keep this a reasonable length, I will just dive right in.  Whenever content is in [square brackets] it means that I am inserting information.

Tracey Izatt
I met someone who worked on The Bachelor for years.

Paola Limon
Do they know that writer [referring to the show creator]?

Tracey Izatt
They didn't overlap.  The producer was rolling their eyes at the creator's claim about signing a 7 year exclusive contract (s/he says no such thing exists).  S/he that you have to work really hard to get onto The Bachelor.  They [The Bachelor production company Next Entertainment - run by Mike Fleiss] start them on Highschool Reunion and, if you work really hard on that, they move you up after a few years.  So basically you need to really, really want to be on The Bachelor to get there.   Also, intriguingly, the UnREAL characters are apparently based on the real-life people on the show.

Paola Limon
I can see why she's justifying it.

Tracey Izatt
Well, let's start with that.  why do you think someone would want to justify being on a show like The Bachelor/Everlasting?

Paola Limon
I think that if the writer wants to make a career writing for scripted TV, she may be somewhat ashamed to admit that she actually enjoyed and/or really worked hard to get to work on a show like Everlasting, or The Bachelor.  Unfortunately people working in scripted TV, writers and producers, tend to look down to reality TV people, even though it takes a lot of hard work and intellect to make it happen.  Even if the results are sometimes silly or dumb.

Tracey Izatt
Silly or dumb is our forte!

Paola Limon
Ha! Well, there are dumb scripted TV shows too.

Tracey Izatt
Right??   It seems so unfair that we are shat on but Two and a Half Men is prestige television. (Okay, maybe it isn't prestige television - but still, there's no question about those writers being in the Guild). [The WGA has only recently started organizing writers in Reality]

Paola Limon
Well, the writers and producers there will get more respect than we would any time.

Tracey Izatt
Why did you decide to leave Reality TV and move into narrative?

Paola Limon
Because that was always my plan and I realized that it was now or never. I'm almost 30 and I just got engaged, and if I wait longer, next thing you know I'll have a baby and it will never happen. I also didn't really feel proud of the work I made most of the time.  Partly because it was hard to care enough to do unpaid overtime to make sense of random footage shot with no story in mind, on a renovation show with Amish people.

Tracey Izatt
Ha-ha.  Just to clarify, you were in Post on those shows [i.e. Post operated independently from the Field]

Paola Limon
There was no planning [in the Field] and I was in charge of making sense of a show with no budget, and not even a "thank you."  There were fun times though.

Tracey Izatt
What were the fun times?

Paola Limon
I will always remember the moment when my girl in What Not To Wear saw herself with her new haircut and cried.  I cried a little too.  And it really changed her life.  I actually just found out through Facebook that she got engaged, and actually has a career now. She looks so happy.  I was in the field there.  And maybe that was the problem.  In Post, you can make someone look like an idiot if you want to, and I always hated that.

Tracey Izatt
Talk to me about Post.  It kind of sucks IMO.  Regardless of whether the footage sucks or not (spoiler alert: it usually does), you are held accountable to make it all make sense.

Paola Limon
Yes, as a Story Producer [AKA Post Producer], you have all the responsibilities of your episode, and what works and what doesn't work is always your fault.  No one asks the Field for answers and the schedules just keep shrinking.

Tracey Izatt
Yeah.  The solution would be to have people take an episode through Post - like directors did on What Not To Wear.  But the schedules make that impossible most of the time - so there's no ownership in the Field (even when I'm there, sad to say).

Paola Limon
I once worked on a show where we had to deliver 24 episodes (12 in English and 12 copies in Spanish), and I was the only Story Producer / VO writer for 3 editors.  Also, the only person (aside from the editors) who spoke Spanish, so I even supervised sound mixes.  All while making 300 dollars less than my normal rate.  And of course, if something went wrong, the fingers would quickly point at me.

And yes to your idea of ownership, that would help [and is the model for excellent shows like Parts Unknown on which directors shoot the show and they move into Post].  And one producer per episode per editor would help too.

Tracey Izatt
How would you say your experiences in reality compare to that on UnREAL?  Is it realistic to you?

Paola Limon
Hmm, well they're a little different because Field is different than Post.  I only did a few jobs in the Field, and I didn't have that much interaction with the cast - which in a way I'm happy for.  I didn't have to do that much manipulating people in person.  What I did do though, was manipulate the footage to make someone say whatever I want for the story, which is easier to do when you don't know them personally, because they're just characters.  I'm not proud of it, but it's part of the job, to tell the best story even when the cast won't give it to you.

Many times I've worked on shows where the cast was not giving us what we needed, and so we used an old scene from a previous season and recut it to fit our current story.  I also have suggested ideas or thoughts to people, and then made them say it to camera as if it was their own idea - which they actually believed.  [It is stunning how often cast members believe the version of Reality that Post serves up.]

So there is a lot of manipulation in both the Field and post.  Although I do think they are exaggerating a bit much.  It's very very melodramatic!  I know it's Lifetime, but seriously, it reminds me of the Mexican telenovelas I grew up watching - which would make me roll my eyes even at the age of 12. That said, I'm still a bit hooked on the show haha.

Tracey Izatt
What are you enjoying about it?

Paola Limon
Well, the drama is addictive. Its different than the shows I've worked on so it's interesting to see - even the unrealistic version of it.  And of course, the underdog story is always appealing, especially with someone who does a similar job than the one I did.  For example (spoiler alert), in a recent episode, the "Bachelor" tells the diamond in the rough Field Producer that he quite fancies her, that she deserves the whole world and he wants to give it to her.  This made me do the biggest eye roll I have ever done! I almost threw up, and yet, the little girl in me who grew up watching Disney movies loved it!  And that's what telenovelas do, they are modern fairytales of rags to riches stories, where prince charming rescues the poor cleaner girl.

It also pissed me off.  I have heard of stories of Producers hooking up with their cast.  But this was just ridiculous.

Tracey Izatt
You mentioned earlier that you thought it was like a telenovela - how so?

Paola Limon
OK, I put a list together. First, what I mentioned already, this story of the rich man who "falls in love" with the poor girl and wants to offer her the world (I know this is not just in telenovelas, but it's just one example).

The insane amount of drama and darkness contained in one episode only in very telenovela-esque. There is no way that many shitty life-changing things happen in 4 days time, every time.

Love triangles everywhere!

Stylistically, I have always found funny when telenovelas use these intense close ups on the characters in very melodramatic moments, especially with women, and they slowly push in.  This show uses them all the time.

Another thing is, women in the show are extremely shady and manipulative.  I understand that it's part of what you would find at a show like "The Bachelor" but this deceiving and scheming goes beyond the show, it happens on every story with every character.  Like Quinn and the therapist, and Chet.  It's sickening actually.

Finally, there are some similarities in the treatment of women.  Not only the contestants on the show (which have the lowest status), but also Quinn and Rachel.  Even though they have a bit more power than some of their peers, they are still pretty low personally (and professionally too in the case of Quinn), and sex and using men is a way of getting what they want.

Tracey Izatt
In some ways though I find that the way women are depicted in the show is actually somewhat realistic.  Quinn and Rachel are the people who're making things happen, but they are not really getting the credit that is a common situation in Reality.  That's why there are so many women in Post. Women are very good at doing cleanup.  Or, rather, cleaning up other people (AKA Chet)'s messes.

Paola Limon
Yeah, I agree with that.

Paola Limon
Yes, its not easy to climb that world.

Tracey Izatt
Who do you relate to more: Quinn or Rachel?

Paola Limon
Well, if I have to pick one I would say Rachel.  Especially with the dreaming of getting out of the job.  I could see myself enjoying having all the power Quinn has, but I would like to think I would never do the shit she does.  But it's a slippery slope.  I don't want to go back and be an EP and have to make those decisions about real people's lives.
(Sorry, I don't mean to shit on what you do btw, because I have done it too - its just not my passion)

Tracey Izatt
Yes, please leave the shitting on what I do to the expert: me! I took that dumb Buzzfeed quizz and unsurprisingly I was Quinn.

However, I feel as though Quinn, in a way, represents the voice of Post.  Like her calling the cast meatpuppets, that seems like a Posty kind of sentiment.  The way she talks back to her footage, also seems like post.

Tracey Izatt
We can wrap this up in a second - but let's talk a bit about rigging competition shows
according to unREAL, Everlasting is rigged.  This is something non-reality people seem to believe too, that competition shows are all rigged, but in my experience, and from what i've heard, rigging isn't as common as people like to think.

Some shows are rigged, but a good deal aren't.  From what I've heard The Bachelor is not rigged - at least not in the fashion that Everlasting would seem to be.

Paola Limon
I know that a competition show I did was not rigged for most of it, but at the end I heard the Network and production company weighed in who should win.  I didn't hear what happened, but I wasn't in the "in" circles to know really.

Tracey Izatt
I'm a purist.  I think they shouldn't be rigged and we should simply make what we have work.

Paola Limon
Yeah, just hope that you have a great casting team! I would believe the network and producers have input on who stays longer in a show like that - after all you need good characters (like Quinn makes a point to say all the time).

Tracey Izatt
From what I understand The Bachelor is not rigged precisely because, after all, you kind of want a wedding at the end, and that's a tough thing to achieve if you're rigging shit.

I feel as though competition production is structured in such a way that - as you say - if the casting was good, you shouldn't need to rig it to keep the viewers interest
besides, as we both know, Post often sees something in characters that we don't in the Field.

Paola Limon
True.

Tracey Izatt
I usually despise - in person - the very people who make great TV.  So why make that call in the Field?

Paola Limon
I feel like again, with the right casting,you could find people who would get married just to be on TV and magazines.

Tracey Izatt
Yeah, there's that!  So any other thoughts you'd care to share about unREAL?

Paola Limon
Well, that I don't want to sound like I'm totally shitting on it. Or on Reality TV.  Despite me wanting to never go back, it has a very special place in my heart.  I learned everything I know about story there (and a lot from you Tracey), I got to be creative very quickly and I had a lot of fun.  Plus, there are a lot of brilliant people working in it, so I don't want to sound like a snob

I also think the show is very interesting, despite its melodramatic nature and I'm hooked.  Its a guilty pleasure

Tracey Izatt
Great.  Thanks.  I know I said this would be a half hour thing and I went way over.

Paola Limon
No worries.  Thanks!