Fear and Loathing in Reality TV: Development Edition

"Fear is the mind-killer.” George Herbert, Dune. 

"Our fears are like dragons guarding our most precious treasure." Rainer Maria Rilke.

After the attacks in Paris, Beirut, Bamaco, Tunis (and counting), there’s a fair amount of fear around these days. Fear can be handy if you’re a politician. George Bush used it to motivate a war against Iraq, a secular country that didn’t attack America, while choosing to ignore Wahhabist Saudi Arabia from whence Bin Laden and most of the hijackers hailed. Now cohorts in his party are using it to reject the refugees they produced by fucking up that war. It seems that fear can be wielded to justify just about anything. 

But fear also informs the decisions we think we’re making freely. Specifically the stupid/destructive ones. It is certainly rampant in every aspect of Reality television production; its prevalence is so all-encompassing that to do it justice I will serialize this discussion. Let’s call it: Fear and Loathing in Reality TV. For the purposes of this exercise I’ll walk you through the development, production and edit of a hypothetical Reality show called, The Rarin’ Oliveris.

PART ONE: DEVELOPMENT

The story starts, as must any story of this ilk, with the owner of a Production Company—we'll call him Bob—and, because Bob is that kind of guy, his company’s named Bob’s Your Uncle Productions. Bob's actually a pretty insecure guy. He doesn't have a whole lot of experience in the industry, and started the company with money from his in-laws, who refinanced their home. Bob sold a series last year which kept things afloat, but until (when!) that gets renewed he needs to keep selling. He needs to make his overhead.

Now, while most people not in the industry assume networks and cable channels produce their own shows, this is not the case. Companies like Bob’s Your Uncle pitch show ideas to networks. When a network buys a show, they basically provide the pitching production company with the budget to produce it.  

Bob recently found out that let's say TLC is looking for family-oriented shows: stuff with a heart but also a twist. Like, say, the Duggars, without the molestation. As luck would have it, Bob knows just such a family: the Oliveris of Staten Island. The Oliveris have a family rock 'n roll band that plays gigs around New Jersey. Mom plays keyboard, daughter plays drums, son shakes a mean tambourine, and dad takes lead vocals. Outside of being a band, though, they're a regular, very tight-knit family. 

Bob's nervous. Any money he uses to shoot what we call a sizzle reel is wasted if it doesn't sell. Still, TLC's looking for this kind of thing, the Oliveris are real over-the-top type Reality characters,  and also ... Staten Island. If he doesn't pitch this, someone else will. So he musters resources to shoot a sizzle. He tries to keep the cost of production down (read: unpaid interns and possibly an underpaid Associate Producer) but still has to drop a couple of thousand dollars in editing. He just hopes he's made the right decision producing this pitch. 

Bob shoots at least ten of these a year and sometimes he doesn't sell any of them. So, he spends about $20K on Development a year (and, frankly, this is vastly understating the number of pitches production companies probably make each year). This is a scary amount of money to throw against the wall in the hopes of something sticking.

The day of the Network meeting an anxious Bob arrives with three sizzle reels (he’s modified two other pitches so that they meet the family-with-a-twist spec) and a desperate smile. The network exec's late; there’s a new Head of Programming at the network and there have been nonstop meetings since his arrival. (Unbeknownst to fearful Bob, the exec herself is terrified that the new boss will toss her like the other execs who’ve recently been let go). She's sorry but she only has ten minutes. 

Bob bobs his head, of course, of course while calculating internally which pitch to discard - he won't have time for three. So, what have you got to show me? Bob hits plays on his first sizzle, a pitch about an Alaskan survivalist family. Bob's on the edge of his seat. This is a strong concept (and is secretly Bob's favorite) but as he unspools the sample the network exec is constantly checking her email. Shit, he's really not getting traction with this one. 

Survive! Alaska is a bust. Bob moves onto the The Rarin' Oliveris. The network exec's still checking her phone but she seems faintly amused by footage of mom and dad getting into a fight about wardrobe. Bob perks up. The executive looks down at her phone. Fuck. He raises the audio to get her attention. The sizzle cuts to the Oliveris doing a show at a Staten Island church venue. The executive glances up. “Ooh, a church!” she says. As it happens, the new Head of Programming specifically wants more Christian family programming. What would be really good, she says, is if the Oliveris were actually Christians seeking to spread the Word by singing Bible-inspired songs at Christian venues. Would this be possible?

Well, no, not really. The Oliveris are many things, but church-going ain’t one of them. Also, their songs are generally rockabilly with a dash of jazz. But this is the first positive response he's had all meeting. So Bob, motivated by the fear of what will happen if he doesn't make a sale, says sure. He has no idea exactly how such a thing may be executed, or even if it can be, but he starts making all kinds of promises he really can't deliver on.

Bob makes the sale: an eight episode, half-hour series. Only, instead of the show being about a zany Staten Island family called The Rarin' Oliveris, now it's Alleluyah Oliveri. And instead of a docusoap about a hard-drinking, cursing, rock 'n roll family (the reality) it's a docusoap about a family of big characters committed to spreading the word of God (the Reality). Also the budget is pretty small and they want to premiere the show in about, you know, 4 months. Can you do it Bob? Yes! (This is where, in interview bite, we would have Bob confess that he has no idea how to pull this off!!)

CLIFFHANG INTO COMMERCIAL as we say.

Speaking Up for the Kardashian (crazy, I know)

It is a testament to the ubiquity of Kardashian Klan that my seventy-something father-in-law, who doesn't watch television "because it's shit," has recently (and somewhat horrifyingly) emerged as an expert on Kim. And while I would rather stab myself repeatedly in the head with a dull fork than watch their show, there's a shitton of Klan facts clotting up my brain. For one thing I know that they are called the Klan.

For another I know that matriarch Kris Jenner whores out her family relentlessly (literally, in the case of Kim's exquisitely produced sex tape whose release spurned the Keeping Up With the Kardashians juggernaut); that Michael K at Dlisted has tagged her Pimp Mama K (PMK) and Satan's Homegirl, labels that have caught fire across the inter webs; that her other nickname is "a source" in multitudinous TMZ and E! articles about the family. 

I know that Kim married some dude named Kris Humphries (dumping him immediately thereafter) seemingly solely to provoke the ratings bonanza that was their televised wedding.  

I know that she has since married Kanye West. 

Finally, I know that Khloe Kardashian was married to Lamar Odom (I don't follow basketball, so this is the only way I know of him) and that he was struggling with an addiction that many seem to attribute to his involvement with the Klan. 

This is a family born for the side eye.

And yet, I find myself surprisingly inclined to defend them amidst the vitriol that Odom's recent OD has unleashed. The moment commentators became aware that Khloe and Kris had gone to his Vegas hospital, folks seized their pitchforks. Apparently, it was impossible to believe that Lamar's almost ex-wife and her mother might legitimately want to be by his bedside. Or that her older sister might later join them to show support. 

Accusations that they had taken cameras from KUWTK along with them to the hospital were soon disproven. And commentators even begrudgingly conceded that maybe the K Klan's concern about Odom might be valid. However, they warned, only time will tell how genuine that concern might be: if the OD storyline is covered on the show, that will prove that PMK, Kim and Khloe really are just in it for the bucks!

Well, why wouldn't/shouldn't it be covered in the show? ::Ducks for cover::

There are those (many in this industry) who will say, look, Odom signed a release, he's fair game. I won't even go there. (I strongly question whether people truly understand what signing a release means when you are dealing with the likes of us, but that's a conversation for another post). Rather, I need to point out that KUWTK is a Docu-Soap, and on a Docu-Soap the participants' lives are the show. If this were about Jeff Probst and Survivor, we would not be having this conversation. His off-camera life would be irrelevant.

KUWTK, however, is about the K family, a family that is extremely present in both the tabloid and mainstream press. Odom isn't some random guy who Khloe happens to have sunk her claws into; this is the woman's almost ex-husband, and she happens to have the legal responsibility to determine his medical care. So, not covering the overdose would be glaring. 

How are they (the producers or the cast) supposed to continue shooting a show about this family without addressing the fact that the ex of one of them almost died? And, as much as you might hate the K Klan, surely you acknowledge that Khloe has the right to represent/discuss her own life. And if Odom doesn't want to appear, or his family dislikes how he's portrayed, a mere threat of a lawsuit generally convinces producers to remove offending material (just ask the cast and producers of Love and Hip Hop). 

Which doesn't mean I think this is all kittens and rainbows. Do I think that producers will want this material covered because of the potential ratings boost? Of course. As individuals, they may or may not care for Odom (likely they do: it happens when you're shooting with someone), but they will also want to include this kind of material because it benefits a show with declining numbers. PMK, in turn, is equally invested in seeing the material on the air, and for the same reason. But none of this proves or disproves that Khloe has genuine feeling for her ex. 

I can't speak to the state of Khloe Kardashian's soul. Or to whether Pimp Mama Kris has one. Either way, the scales won't be tipped for me if his OD is included in the show. And I do think that covering a character forced to confront the potential death of a loved one, is something that, as a producer, I would want to do. And I believe (in this one instance!) that doing so is completely ethical. 

#kimkardashian #kuwtk #kardashians #khloekardashian #prayforlamarodom #lamarodom