Reality Bits (Housewives Edition)

1. Celebrity Thievery

Kim Richards who has the dubious distinction of being too messy for Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, and is therefore an ex-Housewife, pled no contest to shoplifting from the Target in Van Nuys. She was sentenced to attend 52 Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, 300 hours of community labor and can no longer shop (if that's the word) at the Target in Van Nuys. Tribulations trail in Richards' wake: in addition to being kicked off Housewives (for real, how much of a fuck up do you have to be to get fired by Bravo!?), she also walked out of a Dr. Phil interview, got wasted at daughter Brooke's Mexico wedding, and at one point reportedly was living in her car.

But I come here not to cast stones at Richards (who clearly has issues) but to discuss a tendency I've noticed among celebrities to, how do you say, liberate shit from random places. I have been in the company of more than one celebrity who'll just pick up something in a store/showroom we're in and just walk on out with it. Most of the time they get away with it, although I was once extremely gratified when a particularly pernicious thief was stopped in her tracks and was forced to yammer her way out of it. And I still think I was more embarrassed than she was.

But the fascinating thing is that often the stuff being stolen isn't that desirable (or certainly not worth going to the clink over). Richards, for instance, zeroed in on multiple make up cases, markers, stickers and something that looks intriguingly like a dildo (but isn't because Target). I, in turn, have seen celebs steal equally random stuff from production including: a bag of garbage bags; a couple of coolers (the Production Manager who requested them back was fired); a set of multi-colored velour track suits and quantities of craft that would fill several storage units.

I don't know why getting famous increases your predisposition to steal. Is it that you just get so much for free that you come to expect it? Cuz based on my experience thievery's a celebrity pandemic.

2. The Ginger Prince

Nothing warms my soul as much as when I can combine my first love, gossip, with discussions of reality. Thus I am delighted to send you to this article from the Daily Mail that postulates that Camilla, (AKA Charles' former sidepiece, AKA the current Duchess of Cornwall) is currently on the hunt for a bride for everyone's favorite royal Hot Prince Harry (AKA the Ginger Prince).

But how, you might say, is this about Reality? (You might also say I just want an excuse to go looking for images like this, this and even this.) Well, one obstacle to Camilla's matchmaking is that Harry, according to the DM, "has developed a penchant for the company of older, more worldly women on whose discretion he can rely." Funny that they used the word discretion, because the (former) spare to the throne was not being quite as discreet when he had a quickie with Real Housewives of DC cast member Cat Ommanney, during production on that show.

Older ladies may be discreet, but production staff, not so much!


3. Contextless Yes

Finally, Vicky Gunvalson "confessed" on the Real Housewives of Orange County Reunion that her ex, Brooks Ayers abused her (among other things). Much is being made of the fact that when Andy Cohen asked her if she was afraid of Brooks she "timidly nodded her head 'yes'." Now quite possibly he is abusive and she is frightened of him, but I will tell you this: we can find a "yes" or nod from pretty much anywhere in a sequence of footage and place it where we want it (for instance after a question like, "Are you afraid of him?").

So I wouldn't be taking anything that appears on a reality show as gospel, especially when it comes to something as loaded as this. Not everyone out there is sue happy, and I am aware of at least one other instance on Bravo where someone told an extremely damaging and bald-faced lie about another character, and got away with it. Legal be lax.

#princeharry #kimrichards #rhoc #rhbh #rhdc

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 7

Episode 7 of UnREAL deals with the fallout from cast member Mary's on-set suicide. The story line initially bugged me because it didn't seem believable. The only suicide I could recall was that of Sinisa Savija, who appeared on the first version of Survivor, a Swedish show called Expedition Robinson. His suicide provoked such a scandal that the network almost canned the series (as the Survive! format was launched with this show, one might well wonder how it might have fared after that).

However, as I discovered when Googling “suicide” and “Reality TV”, the words appear in close proximity with alarming frequency. There's even this handy-dandy slide show of reality cast members who have died, and a fair number of them killed themselves. You may note that Kitchen Nightmares has been particularly lethal, clocking 2 suicides; Russell Armstrong, a member of the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills cast, killed himself after fearing how he was to be represented in an upcoming season of the show; not mentioned on this list is the suicide of Kellie Williams a participant on Extreme Makeover.

It is this final suicide that most closely resembles what happened on UnREAL, where there is little doubt that some combination of Rachel and Shia -- both Field Producers -- were responsible for Mary's suicide. Basically, Kellie Williams' sister Deleese was selected to appear on Extreme Makeover as a plastic surgery candidate. As part of the show, Kellie was interviewed about her sister's looks. According to family members during that interview producers “goaded” Kellie into saying negative things about Deleese's appearance, things that Deleese overheard. As it turns out Deleese's surgery was canceled at the last minute (her recovery time apparently “wouldn’t fit the show's schedule”), exacerbating the issue between the sisters. Because now Deleese knew her sister considered her ugly, and she couldn't even have the corrective surgery to address it. Four months later Kellie, overcome with anguish, committed suicide. The family filed a lawsuit holding the Producers culpable.

The Extreme Makeover suicide is exceptional, however. Reality-related suicides generally seem to occur after the show has aired, and this isn’t a coincidence. Field Producers—while wily (and often evil)—can seldom rise to the level of unabated cruelty practiced by Post Producers. To clarify: when a show is shooting it is usually in the edit at the same time. So there are producers shooting in the field (Field Producers), and producers in Post (Post Producers) working with editors to craft the story. While Field Producers see cast members as human beings (and require the good will of casts to perform their jobs), Post Producers tend to view cast members as characters in a script they're writing. Their intent isn't to represent people accurately but, rather, to present the most compelling version of a person (even if that version is less than desirable to the actual person). If the cut reflects the reality, great, if it doesn't reflect the reality, they don't care (much). They just want to get their fucking cut past the network, and they will do whatever it takes to make that happen. If Kellie Williams was upset with how her sister reacted to her words in an interview, god knows how she would have reacted if Post had gotten their claws on it.

There is no overstating the havoc that can be wrought on an individual by an adept Post Producer. And cast members aren't the only ones whose characters are impacted in this process. Because in the process of coldly transforming people into often inaccurate, or at least incomplete archetypes, Post Producers are themselves transformed.  Spend enough time in Post crafting people's words against them and creating conflict out of whole cloth and even the nicest and most well-meaning among us can devolve into arrogance. After all, we are godlike, creator of worlds. And with such arrogance comes a loss of empathy for the real people whose real lives we impact.  Because, whereas Rachel and Shia have literal blood on their hands and are plagued by the awareness of their sins, a Post Producer kills from afar and without consequence.   

Long story short: Post Producers need to occasionally get the fuck out of their chairs and head into the morass that is Production, lest they lose their souls entirely.