Reality Squared: Televisual Discourse on the Real.(Book Review)

Reality Squared: Televisual Discourse on the Real. Ed. James Friedman. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2002.

Reality television demands our attention. As reality programming floods the networks and the first all-reality channel is launched, television studies must assess this phenomenon. What does the genre's success reflect about popular culture? How will it influence the television industry? How does it revise our understanding of the "real" and visual representation?

While cultural critics have discussed television's representations of "reality," we are only starting to explicate the most recent cycle of reality-based programming dating from the 1980s. Reality Squared is a rich contribution to this emerging field. It is the first collection to address reality programming as a whole; previous discussions have isolated particular genres or have not treated the topic as their primary focus. This collection gives a textured, historicized account featuring cogent discussions of visual theory, television history and political economy, formal conventions, and the cultural work of specific programs.

James Friedman's introduction frames the recent programming as "televisual neorealism" that links reality conventions to dramatic structure. He argues that reality-based productions are not new; television featured so-called reality elements in the 1950s. What is new is how the "reality" moniker has become a highly successful marketing tool.

Friedman summarizes the volume's concerns: reality television's formal strategies, program analysis, and how it presents and creates history. This book's main strength is the broad historical and critical framework, because it considers both recent and older programs in light of cultural theory. The essays touch on common issues, such as whether television has some exemplary claim to "liveness" as compared with other media, like radio or the Internet.

Section one considers how ideology mediates television's depictions of history. Discussing 1950s naturalistic acting styles on live broadcasts, Rhona Berenstein proposes that rather than evaluating "liveness" truth claims discredited by poststructuralism, we should instead question why and how liveness is used as a descriptor to promote the medium. Alan Nadel examines how 1950-1960s Westerns purport to represent historical "reality" while erasing blacks and supporting the Cold War. Noting huge female viewership for two 1950s Senate hearings, Kristen Hatch argues that networks stopped airing live daytime political coverage to avoid threatening the American nuclear family. Lynn Spigel has shown this ...