"Laguna Beach" started as a pun on "Beverly Hills 90210" in 2004 following the lives of high school teenagers living in Laguna Beach, Calif. The show was an instant hit on MTV and was followed by thousands. After season two, the narrorator of the show Lauren Conrad was offered a spin-off show entitled "The Hills." She had graduated high school and moved to Las Angeles to go to college.
The show was highly criticised and always questioned weather the show was supposed to be "reality" television or just another show for entertainment. The question was not answered until the final episode of "The Hills" seven years after "LC" (Lauren Conrad) had begun her MTV career.
If you skip ahead in the clip to 2:45 left, the ending tells the answer.
The Hills finale final clip
This show was all fake, set-up, and lead everyone to believe these people were truly living these lives. But we were fooled. If you look at how much people live and thrive off of reality television, it's astonishing how people were literally heart broken to find out what they were lead to believe for 7 years, was all fake.
We play a huge role in the formation of reality television and keeping it on the stations. "Laguna Beach" and "The Hills" were set up to look real because "reality" television is what was popular when they came out. MTV knew that in order to make the ratings sky-rocket, the show HAD to be "reality."
The show was watched because of the people being followed, not because of quality, or of how much it impacted our lives, but simply on beautiful girls in a beautiful city. They were the "popular" girls living out the "perfect" life, and that is what every 14 and 15 year old girl wants to know and see.
Most of the story line, if not all, is based around boyfriend drama, aka, sex appeal. We as viewers were judging the girls' boyfriends and thinking what we would do in those situations, but in "reality" those girls were never even dating those guys.
Reality television is the biggest joke, but that is "where the money is." I feel as though Gabler was exactly on point as to why people do and watch reality television. They want money, we want to watch people live lives we only dream about.
I never watched an episode of "Laguna Beach" or "The Hills" but I know that if it were one of my favorite "reality" t.v. shows that ended up being a "fake", I too would be pretty heart broken too. Or at least really disappointed! You want to believe that you can relate to those people on the shows in some way or another. Or at least more than you could relate to a character in a movie being played by an actor or actress. So, finding out that, in fact, those "real" people that you thought you were relating to the whole time weren't really "real" at all would definitely be a huge disappointment. According to Gabler, that's one of the things that makes reality t.v. different; our ability to relate. I had never heard or read about this before so I'm really glad you posted about it. I found it really interesting and I think it was a great way of proving a point.
ReplyDeleteI love that you chose to do The Hills and Laguna. I'll admit the end of The Hills made me so mad, because I had been an avid viewer the entire time. MTV was smart in making it into a "reality show" format because it really hooked in a viewer. Along with what Evan was saying in his comment, a teenager in PA can relate a lot more to the things an "average" person is going though on television rather than if an A-list actress were playing the role.
ReplyDeleteI honestly did not know that the whole thing was fake!! That boggles my mind! I've been believe that the whole show was true and that those girls just had perfect drama haha. Wow...I really am kind of surprised. It definitely showed some of the real world drama that girls go through. Especially with all the girl fights, boy drama, school drama, etc. I'm just so shocked it was set up!
ReplyDeleteI have never seen the show Laguna Beach. Heard about it somewhat, but never let myself view it. I know the people you speak of, but not much about there lives. It doesn't surprise me to hear that it was fake because reality can not be produced for entertainment in my mind. I like how you said that reality is where the money is, but honestly, that money only lasts a certain amount of time. Most reality stars fade out within a decade and go back to whatever part time job they can find. So they suck up as much money as they can to maybe survive unemployed for a while or to make a clothing line or another show to benefit from.
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