How real is reality TV?

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Hill Annette (2005) described reality television as its own genre that documents real-life, unscripted situations. This genre increased in popularity since MTV’s very own The Real World, a series that began with the depiction of young-adult issues, such as sex, abortion, AIDS and death. After their success, we came to see more titles popping up and thriving under this genre, such as The Simple Life, Idols and Keeping Up with The Kardashians.

In Indonesia, this genre is very much alive and kicking as well. Popstars Indonesia became the first of its kind in the country. The show itself is an adaptation from New Zealand’s reality TV show, Popstars. It managed to run for one season and produced a group called SparX, but we no longer heard anything from them. The next show, however, became what we might consider as the trigger to the never-ending flow of reality TV shows on our television to this day.

Akademi Fantasi Indonesia, popularly known as AFI, became Indosiar’s highest-rated talent search reality TV show in 2003. The show itself is an adaptation from a Mexican show, La Academia, and Malaysia’s Akademi Fantasia. The show is headed by a Headmaster and the contestants are referred to as students. These contestants are quarantined in a dormitory and subjected to singing, dancing, acting, English and various other classes. The winner would be determined by the number of SMS sent in the contestant’s support, which relied heavily on their popularity. By the end of the season, the winner would go straight to build their career as a singer with Sony Music Indonesia.

Among the waves of soap operas airing on Indonesian TV back then, this show became some sort of a breath of fresh air. Aside from the excitement from the competition, AFI also took place in a very controlled environment. Tensions, romantic or not, are bound to happen and it became one of the selling points of this show. Drama that occurred throughout the seasons somewhat managed to show the contestants’ characters which then aroused the sympathy or apathy from the audience. This is in line with Shitrit & Cohen’s (2016) finding that reality TV show tends to encourage extreme self-disclosure.

Upon looking at how successful AFI was, soon other talent search shows began to emerge. However, Indonesian reality TV did not stop at talent search; shows such as Sang Mantan (The Ex), Bedah Rumah (House Renovation), Uang Kaget (Surprise Money) and the likes began to grow in popularity as well. Unlike talent searches, this kind of shows does not take place in a controlled environment and is more emotionally engaging for the audience. For example, Sang Mantan in which the premise is all about an ex-lover who requests the show’s assistance to get back together with the ex they broke up with. How do you think this sort of reality TV would ignite drama?

“Usually, the drama is ignited through the script,” Vina, the MC for the show Sang Mantan and ANSOS, shared her experience working in the project. “For example, talent A wanted to reconcile after breaking up with talent B due to an affair, but then talent B would be directed to refuse the reconciliation or to reveal that they were sick, something like that,” she added, “so it’s already been scripted.” She also shared her experience with ANSOS or Anak Sosmed (Social Media Kids), which is quite similar.

Another talent shared a similar experience. Bru, 35, was a talent for the show Cintailah Cinta (To Love Love) Valentine edition. He explained that back then, he had to go through a casting process. “During the casting, I was told to react to certain situations,” he explained, “I was doing the casting for the irritable role.”

The word “role” is interesting because assuming a role means that the show exhibited talents who are not being themselves. He added that in the show, he was playing Surya, an irritable long-time boyfriend to his girlfriend. “The girlfriend was also another talent, not my real partner; so were the other talents involved.”

However, the situation was not always under control. Vina’s experience with ANSOS, for example. In the show, she was supposed to live somebody else’s less fortunate life. Yes, she and the other MCs were given certain roles and told to act accordingly, but even when many aspects have been planned, nobody really knew what was going to happen on set. “There are scripted situations, but there are also things that happened by accident on the spot,” she stated.

This fact begs a new question: is fabricated reality not a reality at all? How real can you get when there’s a camera and a team following you around?

Aside from those shows, we have other reality shows with different kinds of approach and execution, such as AnakArtis (Celebrity Kids) and Bukan Keluarga Biasa (The Extraordinary Family). These reality TV shows follow certain people; five celebrity kids in AnakArtis and the family of Vanesha Prescilla, Sissy Priscillia, Rifat Sungkar, Jevin Julian and Rini Wulandari for Bukan Keluarga Biasa. The approach reminded us of Keeping Up with The Kardashians where we could see the Kardashians’ daily activities, but with much less made-up dramas.

In a discussion about his experience being a part of AnakArtis, Brandon Salim, 24, said he saw the opportunity as a fresh alternative for him and his friends to express and introduce themselves to the public without any kind of distortion. Apparently, they came from the same director. “Me and the other kids also had time to bond and learn about each other through weeks of shooting together, so we also ended up sharing stories,” he explained, “so when we’re talking on-cam, there’s no script whatsoever, just what we regularly talk about among ourselves.”

He also shared that it was a bit hard for him before, because he felt like he had to put a mask to be liked by people. “However, in AnakArtis I became myself and I was liked and it entertained people, which makes me feel good because (being myself) gratifies me very much.”

The approach does appear to be very genuine on Brandon’s side as one of the talents that it left quite a mark too for him. To understand this form of reality TV show, we also reached out to the people behind these shows.

Sean Monteiro, the director for both AnakArtis and Bukan Keluarga Biasa, disclosed the long process he and his team had to go through when they were about to start Bukan Keluarga Biasa. At the beginning, the concept was more about a “celebrity family,” but everything changed throughout the process. “Once (the family) agreed to be involved, we started meeting regularly, sometimes I’d meet them one-on-one and we would just chat,” he recounted the experience, “the deeper our relationship, the more I understood who they were, and the closer the show is to their life.”

The situation was reflected as well in our discussion with Nadia Hudyana, the producer and showrunner for Bukan Keluarga Biasa. According to her, what sets reality TV shows apart from the rest is the reality aspect of it. Unlike other TV shows, shows of this genre are supposed to be ‘real’ and unscripted. “The talents of the show are supposed to be themselves, do things they would actually do and have real conversations with each other,” she said.

As for the directing, Sean did mention that there are some directing and planning in the production process. “I have a plan on how the shooting day is going to be,” he confirmed, “and in that plan, we also have a kind of guidelines for where we think the story might go.” However, he never shared these plans with the talent and that is how sometimes things would turn out completely different than expected. This element of surprise for the team behind the production provided a refreshing way of igniting real conflict to be captured on camera. He might have set up the scenes, but the talents’ personal situation is what cultivates the final product.

Finally, when it comes to reality TV show, one might wonder: what makes the reality shown on screen so fetching, sometimes even more than the audience’s own reality?

“Reality TV closes the gap between the audience and the person they see on the screen,” Sean answered. Basically, when one watches a movie, the distance between them and the character they are watching might be vast. However, with reality TV shows, the audience would be able to see the life of people who are quite different from them, and yet relate to it.

In a sense, the genre might be appealing for its audience for its cathartic qualities. It might give an opportunity for the audience to reflect more about their reality or even their humanity. Or, they might just enjoy what they see and that’s all fine, too.