In a review today titled “Reality TV’s messages get a smackdown from feminist critic’s book,” the Denver Post’s Joanne Ostrow calls Reality Bites Back “an entertaining and sharp-eyed takedown” of reality television that “unpacks the political and commercial agendas behind the genre.” In this, the first review in a major U.S. newspaper, Ostrow writes, “Pozner has delivered a savvy, not-too-academic analysis of a form that’s not a just fad — and one that’s eating up more and more of the TV schedule”:

Quick reminder: if you’re in New York City, Hunter College is the place to be today, as media literacy activists, media makers, youth educators, girls’ rights advocates, scholars — and, importantly, girls themselves — will be coming together for the SPARK Summit (Sexualization Protest: Action, Resistance, Knowledge).

On behalf of Women In Media & News, I’m thrilled to be presenting tomorrow during the “Shining a Light on Sexualization in the Media” workshop, along with Andrea Quijada of the Media Literacy Project, and Yana Walton and Jill

Marcellus of

the Women’s Media Center. Andrea will be conducting an interactive media literacy game, we’ll show a Spark Summit-produced video about sexualization (including many clips from reality TV shows), after which I will discuss sexualization in reality TV–in particular, stereotypes about women’s sexuality, the differences in how hypersexualization of women of color plays out, how to watch critically.

Media personalities including Geena Davis and MTV’s Amber Madison will be speaking, as will WIMN allies such as Samhita Mukhopadhyay of Feministing, sex educator and young feminist leader Shelby Knox, Emily May of HollaBack, the WMC’s Jamia Wilson, and many others.

See the SPARK Summit agenda.

There’s still time to register.

On Saturday, I introduced you to six people in the Reality Bites Back readers gallery: Andrew from Brooklyn, Veronica from Chicago, the interns of Reel Grrls in Seattle, and a very precocious (or, well, hungry) kid in Los Angeles.

Today, it’s time to meet four new members of our reading community:

Straight from the belly of the beast — Los Angeles, where reality TV stereotypes are carefully crafted — professor Melanie Klein snuggles up on her

couch with the book. Melanie will be teaching from Reality Bites Back this semester, along with many women’s studies, ethnic studies, communications/media studies, and humanities professors across the country. (Which I’m really excited about, by the way.) She is also helping to organize this event:

It seems Seattle-based Jerry Darcy was a bit confused by the book. First, he apparently thought some of the reality show anecdotes I described are so preposterous, they’d made more sense upside down:

Then, he searched in vain for a Reality Bites Back centerfold pinup. (You’ll be looking for a long time, there, Tiger…):

When he finally started reading it right-side up, he was shocked, SHOCKED, by what he learned:

Today at ColorLines Magazine, Neelanjana Banerjee looks at race, representation and reality TV and asks, as per the story’s headline: “Is Reality TV a Revolution for Race or the New Minstrel?”

A smart, nuanced and well-reported piece, Banerjee notes that:

“A series of NAACP reports have tracked the dismal representation of African Americans and other people of color on network television for the past decade. In 2000, the NAACP called for a boycott of the four major networks because none of their 26 new shows featured an actor of color in a lead or starring role. In 2006, the NAACP reported the number of minority actors of any sort in prime-time had declined to barely 300. In its most recent report, however, the NAACP declared reality TV ‘the only bright spot’ in the industry.”

The NAACP could arrive at such a conclusion because, as Banerjee writes, “Today, the mainstream dating shows, such as ‘The Bachelor,’ primarily ignore people of color. But on competition shows and on cable networks, characters of color are much more likely to show up.”

Which

Today on CBC Radio, I spoke with Day 6 host Brent Bambury about the suicide of Joseph Cerniglia, a participant on Gordon Ramsey’s Fox reality show, Kitchen Nightmares. [Listen to the interview at the link above, 17:38-24:05]

When the troubled restaurant owner was trying to prove himself on Ramsey’s show, taped in 2007, the vitriolic celebrity chef told him, “Your business is about to f**king swim down the Hudson.” Last week, his body was found in the Hudson, his death ruled a suicide.

If this was a scripted film, critics would say that connection was a bit too on-the-nose.

This marks the second Ramsey reality alum to take their own life. The first was Rachel Brown, who shot and killed herself in 2007 after appearing on Fox’s Hell’s Kitchen in 2006.

As I told Day 6, I do not blame producers or networks for these suicides–but I also do not consider them shocking, in the least. There should be some accountability from networks for the dangerous game they play when they actively seek to cast just the sort of personalities one would assume would be viewed as untenable for shows in which people live together in high-stress environments. And while not all reality show participants are unstable, even those who start off even-keeled often face taping conditions that are designed to break them down, including: sleep deprivation, limited food, ever-present alcohol, constant surveillance, isolation from the outside world, no communication with friends and family beyond sporadic recorded conversations–all of which have been used by intelligence agencies as elements of torture.

KANSAS EVENT: Tonight is my first talk on reality TV for the fall semester (calendar here), and I’m happy to kick of WIMN’s multimedia lecture tour to Kansas State.

WHAT: Project Brainwash!: Why Reality TV Is Bad for Women (…and men, people of color, the economy, love, sex, <em>and sheer damn common sense!)

WHERE: Kansas State University, Forum Hall

WHEN: Tonight, Sept 21, 7pm

I’m excited to bring a critical conversation about gender, race and advertising in reality television to a campus that seems extremely engaged in ongoing discussions about other aspects of reality TV based on their “common read” book, The Hunger Games, a dystopian young adult novel about a world in which one powerful Capital city forces all its districts to send two of its children to a televised death match where only one makes it out alive. Picture Survivor, but with every 12-18 -year-old contestant out to slit your throat. And where Jeff Probst is secretly hoping you won’t starve to death… but only because getting viciously slaughtered by one of your peers would play better on TV.
.
Tonight’s talk offers a brief glimpse at the issues I delve into in Reality Bites Back: The Troubling Truth About Guilty Pleasure TV (now available for pre-order).

In November, just in time for those all-important Nielsen sweeps (and in the same month as Reality Bites Back will be published), E! will debut Bridalplasty, a headline-baiting reality show combining the desperation and body dysmorphia of Fox’s cosmetic surgery competition The Swan with the unbridled hyperconsumption hawked by wedding industrial complex series such as TLC Say Yes to the Dress, and WeTV’s Bridezillas and My Fair Wedding with David Tutera.

Dismally derivative, Bridalplasty will pit future brides who “want the dream wedding AND the dream body to go along with it” and “are willing to do whatever it takes to beat the competition in order to get that perfection”

against one another in wedding planning challenges. According to E!’s press release, each week the “lucky” winner of each challenge:

“will also get one piece of her dream body – going under the knife for one of the surgeries off her ‘wish list.’ The last bride standing will have the opportunity to have an extreme plastic surgery makeover and win a wedding fit for the stars where she will unveil her shocking new look for the very first time to the man that she’s about to marry.”

OK, it’s official: my summer reality TV fast (a needed respite after sending the Reality Bites Back manuscript off to my publisher) is over. To mark the occasion, I’m going to be livetweeting analysis of the season premiere of America’s next Top Model, Cycle 15 — yes, 15 — tonight at 8pm EST. (UPDATE: Full feed of the livetweeting session below.)

Long-time readers of my other blog (WIMN’s Voices, the group blog of Women In Media & News) know that I’ve monitored this series since it debuted, often to horrifying results. Not surprisingly, then, ANTM features quite often throughout Reality Bites Back, in chapters on body image, race, and product placement advertising and media economics. But the show also has the distinction of being the only reality series of the decade to get its own chapter in the book: “Ghetto Bitches, China Dolls, and Cha Cha Divas: Race, Beauty, and the Tyranny of Tyra Banks.” Let’s see if tonight gives us a glimpse why…

Send your questions, comments and snarky hashtags about gender, race, beauty, product placement, manipulation, Tyra Banks’ batshit crazy antics, and anything else ANTM-related to @jennpozner on Twitter, or post your questions to the comments section below. (You can connect to my Twitter feed by clicking on the blue “t” icon on the sidebar at the right of this page.)

Welcome to Reality Bites Blog, which picks up where Reality Bites Back: The Troubling Truth About Guilty Pleasure TV leaves off.

I’ll be posting regularly with news and analysis of current reality shows, stars, and producers, with my usual recipe of 2-parts-critique, 1-part-snark. Want to dish about your love/hate relationship with Jersey Shore’s Snooki, the latest American Idol judge or contestant, or that reality scandal Joel McHale snarked about on The Soup? Come back soon — this’s all on tap.

Upcoming topics include the despicable planned reality show (and potential snuff-film-of-the-week) about US troops working to diffuse bombs in Afghanistan, the danger and exploitation inherent in this misguided domestic violence reality show pitch, and, on a lighter note… which NBC, FOX and MTV series did ABC cannibalize to make their new low-rent Bachelor knockoff show, Bachelor Pad?

Reality Bites Blog will also take on whatever ridiculous controversy is in the headlines at the moment. If any network is inane enough to buy Levi Johnston’s made-for-reality-TV Wasilla mayoral campaign show, trust me, I’m on it. (On the critique, I mean. Not the show. Can you imagine?) The next time some misogynist dad pretends his kid floated away in a balloon when he was really hidden in an attic (yet nearly every news outlet in the country rushes to report the hoax as fact), this blog will be firmly tethered to sanity. You’re welcome.