“Love is Blind.” “The Bachelor.” “Love Island.” There are hundreds of reality dating shows surrounding the same purpose: to help singles find their “perfect match.” However, as more and more of these shows continue to pop up, the idea behind reality T.V. has begun to change and evolve.
For many, the reason they like reality T.V. is the idea that the cast are normal people just like them; however, this is becoming further and further from the truth. When I watch a reality show, I want to see average looking people who work a nine to five job, not Instagram models and influencers. Nowadays, casts for these shows are usually handpicked for their looks, wealth, and/or background, with many of them not having any trouble in the dating field. Instead, producers should be recruiting a bunch of nobodies who truly need help finding their partner and who are there for the right reason, not just for clout or fame.
“I think on dating shows, such as ‘Too Hot to Handle’ or ‘Love Island,’ the contestants are chosen because of their good looks for the sake of views on the show and not for the sole purpose of the people needing help in their dating life,” Ashley Miller, senior, said.
Once the cast is on the show, many feel the need to have a sob story to stand out. While some may actually have a unique story or experience to share, it is extremely obvious when they are just making it up to seem interesting. Instead of having to watch every contestant describe some over the top deep and personal thing, I want to see someone admit that they have had a pretty decent and average life rather than crying about their childhood dog that died. “The Bachelor’s” newest season is the biggest example of this, as every single girl on the show sat down with Joey Graziadei, the current Bachelor, and opened up about something from their life. While some of the girls had actual stories to tell, like Daisy Kent who talked about her cochlear implant, others told exaggerated stories that did not have the effect on the audience that they thought it would. Katelyn DeBacker, for instance, talked about how she has a supposed family curse which has caused all the women in her family to be single. Not only was this excessive, but it seemed like she just came up with something random on the spot just so she could stand out and say something interesting about herself.
“I feel like a lot of girls on the ‘Bachelor’ feel like they have to have some kind of sob story about their lives in order to open up more to Joey, which really just makes them find some random moment in their lives to trauma dump on Joey,” Charlotte Luiña, senior, said.
While reality T.V.’s main point is to show real life, it has become quite the opposite. In addition to everyday people being underrepresented, many reality T.V. shows are scripted and twisted around in order to gain the most viewers. It is starting to become about what the producers think the audience wants to see instead of what actually happened. Many former cast members on reality shows have spoken out about how certain scenes were edited or cut from the show altogether in order to push a certain narrative. Molly-Mae Hague, a finalist on season five of “Love Island,” revealed that producers would manipulate scenes and tell the contestants what to do in order to create a storyline.
“[The producer] said, ‘Do not worry, we will not show that bit.’ So I told Anna, and I know I got a lot of backlash for being unfaithful to Tommy, but sometimes you have to do things in there that you do not necessarily want to do, but for the storyline it just makes it work (…)Sometimes things like that happen, and it just was not me. So sometimes I wish I had stuck up for myself a bit more and said, ‘Actually no, I’m not going to do that,'” Hague said.
As reality T.V. continues to move farther from reality, there needs to be a push to go back to the way the shows used to be, with unscripted moments and average people on the cast. Instead of this fake version, I want reality T.V. to go back to the unhinged and unscripted way it used to be, catfights and all.
