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Speaker 1: Hi, Curse Up listeners, I know you miss me on

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Speaker 1: your feed. Don't worry. We're working on an all new

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Speaker 1: season of Curse Of coming out later this year. In

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Speaker 1: the meantime, if you can't stop thinking about the shocking

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Speaker 1: stories you heard about America's Next Top Model, you'll definitely

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Speaker 1: want to check out our new docuseries from E Dirty

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Speaker 1: Rotten Scandals. In the series, you'll hear from the America's

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Speaker 1: Next Top Model participants you heard from on Curse Of,

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Speaker 1: and a few you didn't like former A and TM

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Speaker 1: judge Janis Dickinson. Dirty Rotten Scandals unveils the dark underbelly

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Speaker 1: of the long running TV series through the untold stories

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Speaker 1: of former contestants, and shows what happens when a golden

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Speaker 1: opportunity for aspiring models unravels into a harrowing saga of exploitation,

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Speaker 1: shattered dreams, and resilience. You can find the two part

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Speaker 1: docuseries Dirty Rotten Scandals America's Next Top Model on E Network.

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Speaker 1: Check your local TV provider schedule. Now, if y'all know,

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Speaker 1: I couldn't just leave you high and dry like that.

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Speaker 1: Want to beyond some? You want to beyond some want

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Speaker 1: to be on the show Welcome to the Curse of

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Speaker 1: America's Next Top Model, the bonus episode. First, let me

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Speaker 1: say thank you for listening to the season. The response

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Speaker 1: has been great and a little overwhelming. When my team

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Speaker 1: and I started researching and reporting, we had to make

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Speaker 1: some difficult decisions about what to include in the ten

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Speaker 1: episode season and what to leave on the cutting room floor.

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Speaker 1: That's one of the hardest things about this job. My

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Speaker 1: interviews to the show usually went on for hours. As

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Speaker 1: you can imagine, we heard a lot of stuff that

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Speaker 1: didn't neatly fit into the season arc we decided on

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Speaker 1: like the cringey origins of reality TV.

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Speaker 2: When we talked about ethics and reality TV even back

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Speaker 2: in the fifties, we were doing some pretty suspect things.

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Speaker 1: And of course there were more behind the scenes details

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Speaker 1: from the models that couldn't fit into the season. Some

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Speaker 1: of it was downright weird. I heard a lot about

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Speaker 1: stuff that happened on set that made me realize what

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Speaker 1: a strange world reality TV production really is. All season long,

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Speaker 1: we talked about how producers created the stories we saw

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Speaker 1: play out on A and TM. Casting producers find and

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Speaker 1: create characters, show producers, stirrup drama and manufacture storylines. Creative

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Speaker 1: producers craft over the top photoshoots and runways, and a

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Speaker 1: surprising number of contestants willingly sign up for it all. Now,

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Speaker 1: of course, there are some who walk off set and

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Speaker 1: others who ask to be eliminated, but for the most part,

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Speaker 1: a Tom got ten to fourteen contestants to stay through

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Speaker 1: the humiliation for twenty four seasons. People stuck it out

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Speaker 1: because they wanted the title and the prom others just

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Speaker 1: wanted the exposure. But still it's actually impressive. I mean

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Speaker 1: in a dark way that producers got contestants to cooperate

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Speaker 1: with all this. This's equip I hear a lot from

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Speaker 1: people who criticize the models for coming forward today to

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Speaker 1: talk about their negative experiences on the show.

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Speaker 3: These were not miners. There were grown ups who knew

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Speaker 3: what they were getting into. And if you hated it

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Speaker 3: that much, you could have quit, you could have stopped.

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Speaker 1: That was Perez Hilton standing in for the popular opinion.

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Speaker 1: There's a belief that if the models didn't like it,

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Speaker 1: they could just leave, But I don't think it's quite

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Speaker 1: that simple. From the moment you walk on set as

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Speaker 1: a reality show participant, you have to suspend your understanding

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Speaker 1: of how the world in normal human interaction works. Reality

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Speaker 1: shows like A and TM are successful because the contestants' trust,

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Speaker 1: to a certain extent, the version of reality the show

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Speaker 1: is create. In order to maintain that reality, producers have

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Speaker 1: to get to contestants to do what they say. Sarah Harttthorn,

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Speaker 1: who competed on Cycle nine, told me how A and

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Speaker 1: TM achieved this power dynamic and what she compared it

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Speaker 1: to surprised me.

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Speaker 4: I think it's difficult to convey the power dynamic to

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Speaker 4: someone who hasn't been in it. But the closest comparison

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Speaker 4: really is a cult. Sarah explained this using her own

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Speaker 4: cult ranking system. So the People's Temple aka Jonestown, you know,

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Speaker 4: the ones who drank the kool aid, that's a level ten.

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Speaker 4: Fitness programs like Soul Cycle or CrossFit with cult like

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Speaker 4: followings are a level one.

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Speaker 1: Lots of people follow level one cults. Even dedicated fandoms

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Speaker 1: are level one cults. I'm a Beyonce devote. Sarah wrote

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Speaker 1: a book about her experience as a contestant on A

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Speaker 1: and TM. When she started her research, she saw some

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Speaker 1: parallels between A and TM and at first, she felt

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Speaker 1: like being a contestant on the show was a level

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Speaker 1: two or three. Now, after writing the book, Sarah thinks

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Speaker 1: the show's actually closer to a five or six.

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Speaker 4: It takes young girls, and it uses our labor, It

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Speaker 4: does not pay us, and then it spits us out

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Speaker 4: really poor and ill equipped to deal with the after effects.

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Speaker 1: Here's a list of parallels Sarah saw between A and

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Speaker 1: TM and colts. Isolation from everyone you know and love.

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Speaker 1: Check a figurehead or leader the followers can believe in.

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Speaker 1: Check a group of people who are in charge and

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Speaker 1: do the leader's bidding. Check a group of followers who

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Speaker 1: are willing to do whatever is asked of them. Check,

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Speaker 1: and a prize or reward at the end to make

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Speaker 1: up for all the followers suffering. Also check. Sarah says

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Speaker 1: A and TM even use coersive tactics on the contestants,

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Speaker 1: some of the same ones cults have been known to use,

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Speaker 1: like language parroting.

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Speaker 4: They would repeat the same words and phrases to us

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Speaker 4: over and over and over again.

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Speaker 1: Sarah told me that during the casting process, she and

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Speaker 1: the other finalists were kept in a small conference room

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Speaker 1: for hours.

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Speaker 4: They were prepping us, and we spent hours just sitting

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Speaker 4: in these conference rooms with lawyers and producers talking at

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Speaker 4: us for hours and hours and hours and hours and hours.

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Speaker 4: They used mind control tactics.

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Speaker 1: The lawyers and producers repeatedly told contestants that if they

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Speaker 1: ever violated their contracts.

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Speaker 4: We will dock your wages for the rest of your life.

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Speaker 4: That's the phrase that they said, over and over, we

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Speaker 4: will dock your wages for the rest of your life.

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Speaker 1: Sarah said it felt like producers were trying to drill

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Speaker 1: the message into their heads, and that wasn't the only thing.

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Speaker 1: From the start. Producers wanted the contestants to feel disposable

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Speaker 1: and replaceable. The other mantra they would repeat.

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Speaker 4: There are a million girls that want this opportunity, and

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Speaker 4: we have their phone number. They probably said that to

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Speaker 4: us hundreds of times, different people setting it, and those

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Speaker 4: phrases just got stuck in our head. There are a

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Speaker 4: million girls that want this opportunity, and they have their

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Speaker 4: phone number.

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Speaker 1: While it was probably true, the statement served a larger purpose.

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Speaker 1: It made the contestants more cooperative. They knew if they

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Speaker 1: didn't do what the producer said, there would be someone

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Speaker 1: waiting in the wings to take their place. Once producers

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Speaker 1: established that power dynamic. They could get contestants to follow

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Speaker 1: rules they wouldn't normally agree to.

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Speaker 4: They removed our ability to have any agency right. They

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Speaker 4: controlled when we could eat, when we could go to

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Speaker 4: the bathroom. Like I still remember the first time I

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Speaker 4: said can I go to the bathroom? And they said no.

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Speaker 4: That's a very jarring thing to hear, Like that's a

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Speaker 4: script that humans have, right, You say, can I use

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Speaker 4: the restroom? Someone says, oh, yes, of course.

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Speaker 1: That's like a back and forth.

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Speaker 4: It's like a given. It's like a social norm. And

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Speaker 4: that was removed. When we said can I go to

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Speaker 4: the bathroom? We didn't know what the answer would be.

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Speaker 1: While reporting this podcast, I learned A ANDTM and shows

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Speaker 1: like it have pretty strict rules contestants have to follow.

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Speaker 1: If so producers can control what's happening on set. They

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Speaker 1: didn't want the models just wandering around while they were taping.

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Speaker 1: Another rule I heard about might seem counterintuitive. Sometimes the

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Speaker 1: models couldn't even talk to each other. Let's say they

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Speaker 1: were waiting to start a photoshoot or a judging panel.

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Speaker 1: Maybe the location wasn't ready or tyro wasn't there yet.

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Speaker 1: The models couldn't pass the time by just chatting with

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Speaker 1: each other. They had to be on Ice hair Cycle

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Speaker 1: four and seventeen contestant Lisa Dematto, Ice is being silent.

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Speaker 2: You can't even talk to each other, so I'm not

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Speaker 2: allowed to talk.

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Speaker 1: The whole point of a reality show is to get

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Speaker 1: everything on camera. Producers didn't want to risk missing juicy moments.

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Speaker 1: They also didn't want the contestantspply behind their backs. Producers

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Speaker 1: didn't just draw the line at talking with each other.

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Speaker 1: There was a no socializing rule between contestants and crew members.

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Speaker 1: Even though the camera operators and sound engineers were in

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Speaker 1: their faces every day, the models weren't supposed to even

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Speaker 1: say hello or how you doing. Producers wanted the models

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Speaker 1: to behave as though the cameras weren't there, so they

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Speaker 1: literally told them to ignore the people behind them, although

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Speaker 1: one crew member told me that rule eventually went out

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Speaker 1: the window a few seasons in because it was too

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Speaker 1: hard to enforce even though you're surrounded by people. With

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Speaker 1: these rules, you can see why so many contestants say

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Speaker 1: being on a reality show is actually a pretty isolating experience,

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Speaker 1: and that wasn't just on A and TM. Here's reality

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Speaker 1: TV psychologist doctor Stephen Stein. He's worked on shows like

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Speaker 1: Survivor and Big Brother.

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Speaker 5: Some shows are really restrictive. Like a show like Big Brother,

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Speaker 5: the only people they can talk to would be one

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Speaker 5: person in production when they're in the diary room, and

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Speaker 5: then myself and that's it.

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Speaker 1: We see contestants on A and TM talking on the

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Speaker 1: phone to their loved ones back home, but those calls

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Speaker 1: are usually scheduled and very brief. On some reality shows,

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Speaker 1: you can't even talk to your loved ones. I don't know.

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Speaker 1: It's getting a little more culty. Removing objective reality is

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Speaker 1: a foundational part of brainwashing. Also from a production standpoint,

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Speaker 1: they didn't want their cast to be distracted with personal

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Speaker 1: updates and breaking news. They want the set and the

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Speaker 1: house they're filming in to be their entire world for

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Speaker 1: the weeks and months they were in production. But the

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Speaker 1: outside world doesn't stop and sometimes it trumps the reality

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Speaker 1: that's being created by the show. Doctor Stein remembers the

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Speaker 1: time when he had to burst the reality TV bubble

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Speaker 1: with some big news from the outside world.

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Speaker 5: I think my worst situation was COVID. I had to

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Speaker 5: empty entire house a Big Brother Canada when COVID happened,

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Speaker 5: the city forced everything to close down, and everyone's dream

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Speaker 5: sort of fell apart, and I had to deal with

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Speaker 5: each contestant, each house guests coming out.

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Speaker 1: Booming had started right before the COVID nineteen crisis. The

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Speaker 1: cast had no clue what was going on. They'd been

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Speaker 1: completely isolated, and now they had to abruptly leave and

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Speaker 1: go back into this world that was all of a sudden,

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Speaker 1: very different.

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Speaker 5: So I had to tell them there's something that's happened.

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Speaker 5: The world has kind of changed from what it was

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Speaker 5: like when you went into the house and just go

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Speaker 5: through what some of these changes are, and it's going

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Speaker 5: to affect you, and you're gonna have to go right

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Speaker 5: home and you're gonna have to isolate And no, they

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Speaker 5: were shocked. They couldn't believe that we're telling them. It's like, like, what.

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Speaker 2: What is this?

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Speaker 1: Here's the thing. The Big Brother contestants were in such

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Speaker 1: a controlled environment already that when Doctor Stein delivered the

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Speaker 1: news about the COVID lockdown, they didn't believe him.

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Speaker 5: They're like, is this a joke? Is this part of

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Speaker 5: the show.

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Speaker 1: Big Brother had so thoroughly conditioned the cast that they

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Speaker 1: were initially unsure if the pandemic was even real or

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Speaker 1: part of the production. To me, that says a lot

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Speaker 1: about how much of a mind fuck being on reality

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Speaker 1: TV can be. Sarah Hartthorn compared A and TM to

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Speaker 1: being in a cult, and Sarah's not the only one

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Speaker 1: who said something about mind controlled and reality TV. Several

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Speaker 1: people I've interviewed for this podcast compared reality television and

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Speaker 1: more specifically A and TM to psychological experiments. Here's Lisa Dematto.

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Speaker 6: It is literally a show about how to survive.

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Speaker 2: The Stanford Prison Experiment like psychological warfare.

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Speaker 1: The Stanford Prison Experiment was a psychological study done in

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Speaker 1: the seventies at Stanford University. Researchers were interested in looking

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Speaker 1: at obedience, power, and control. Here's doctor Stein explaining the experiment.

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Speaker 5: It stemmed from the Nazis in Germany. Like. The question

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Speaker 5: was were the people who orchestrated the Holocaust? Were they

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Speaker 5: inherently evil and bad? Or could anybody be bad and

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Speaker 5: evil in the right circumstances. That's what he intended to

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Speaker 5: look at, which was a really good question. Were they

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Speaker 5: evil people who were doing all this stuff? Or were

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Speaker 5: they ordinary people who just did bad things.

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Speaker 1: The Stanford prison experiment is infamous for two reasons, first

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Speaker 1: because of how unethically it was conducted, and second because

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Speaker 1: of what it revealed. The lead researcher, doctor Phillips Embardo,

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Speaker 1: took a group of twenty four college age men, paid

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Speaker 1: them fifteen dollars a day, and randomly assigned them to

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Speaker 1: two groups. The first group were the prisoners. They went

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Speaker 1: through a mock arrest by real police. Then they were

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Speaker 1: sent to a makeshift prison in the basement of a

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Speaker 1: building on campus. They were searched, given a prisoner number,

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Speaker 1: a uniform, and led into sales. The second group, the guards,

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Speaker 1: were given fancy uniforms, including mirrored sunglasses to prevent eye contact.

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Speaker 1: The guards received the simple instruction to keep the prisoners

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Speaker 1: in line without physically abusing them. Needless to say, all

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Speaker 1: hell broke loose. What they learned was that given the chance,

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Speaker 1: in the right circumstances, humans will be trash.

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Speaker 7: Please welcome, doctor Philip Zimbardo.

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Speaker 8: What did your experiment prove?

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Speaker 1: Evil behavior?

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Speaker 3: Can be listed in the Best of Us.

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Speaker 1: The study was supposed to go on for two weeks,

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Speaker 1: but after six days they had to pull the pug.

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Speaker 5: Phil Bombardo just sort of threw it out there and

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Speaker 5: let it happen, and by goodness, those bad people got

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Speaker 5: really bad. There was physical altercations, the prisoners took on

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Speaker 5: the role of prisoners like they fought back like prisoners would,

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Speaker 5: and the guards were mean, an awful, an authoritarian like

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Speaker 5: guards would be. And again, these were ordinary people who

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Speaker 5: were randomly assigned.

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Speaker 1: Now, saying A and TM is like the Stanford prison

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Speaker 1: experiment can be a little extreme. But as I looked

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Speaker 1: into the history, I learned that the comparison between reality

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Speaker 1: TV and psychological experiments isn't that much of a leap.

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Speaker 1: Hannah cat Jones was a contestant on cycle sixteen. She

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Speaker 1: told me about two situations that happened on her season

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Speaker 1: that I didn't know what to make of. Producers could

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Speaker 1: argue that certain photo shoots and challenges were a test

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Speaker 1: of the contestant's talent or their ability to perform under pressure,

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Speaker 1: but the situations Hannah told me about were seemingly designed

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Speaker 1: solely to fuck with the contestants and see how they

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Speaker 1: would react. One of those moments happened before the season

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Speaker 1: even kicked off.

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Speaker 6: This is the final round where the show officially begins.

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Speaker 6: Mister and Missus Jay walk up and they're like, okay, ladies.

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Speaker 6: The girls who have their pictures in these envelopes are

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Speaker 6: the ones going into the house, and the girls who

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Speaker 6: don't have their pictures in the envelope are going home.

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Speaker 6: Each person is their envelope and they're like, okay, Betty one,

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Speaker 6: two three, and I pull out a blank piece of paper.

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Speaker 9: And I'm like.

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Speaker 1: It's over. That crushed me. Then the contestants were separated.

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Speaker 1: Hannah's group, the ones with no pictures in their envelopes,

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Speaker 1: were sent up the elevator to a room, presumably to

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Speaker 1: get their bags and go home.

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Speaker 6: We're like picking up our suitcases, and then Tyra Banks

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Speaker 6: starts walking down this staircase and she's like looking down

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Speaker 6: at us, Hi.

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Speaker 1: Ladies, I'm so sorry.

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Speaker 8: Okay, but you guys can't give up, right, no, right,

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Speaker 8: This is like you guys got really far.

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Speaker 6: The tears keep coming and you're trying to hold them back,

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Speaker 6: and you can't hold them back anymore because she's coming

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Speaker 6: to say goodbye.

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Speaker 8: This is it.

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Speaker 2: I've gotten like so turned down.

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Speaker 8: The door slammed in my face.

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Speaker 2: The road to success and to the top is not

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Speaker 2: a straight line. It's a zigzag line.

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Speaker 8: So unfortunately, you guys have to go home now, but

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Speaker 8: you don't have to go far.

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Speaker 2: Because you're.

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Speaker 6: And she pressed a button and there was like drapes

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Speaker 6: that I hadn't really noticed around the stairwell. So then

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Speaker 6: all of a sudden, these drapes fall and we're in

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Speaker 6: like a penthouse apartment with like pictures of ourselves and

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Speaker 6: toys and candy, and like we're all like it's like

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Speaker 6: the silence, like what's going on? And she's like, you're

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Speaker 6: on this show, and we all just start like jumping

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Speaker 6: up and down.

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Speaker 2: We're like, some of us are crying again.

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Speaker 1: Some of the girls were literally falling on the ground.

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Speaker 1: And punped was popular at the time. Tyra referenced it

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Speaker 1: on this episode. This little stunt was her sick nod

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Speaker 1: to the show.

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Speaker 6: And that was like the first night. The next day

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Speaker 6: they're like, okay, we're gonna start filming.

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Speaker 1: But remember there was another group of girls who had

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Speaker 1: gotten pictures in their envelopes. They thought they made it

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Speaker 1: onto the show, but they were actually getting sent home.

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Speaker 1: We didn't see A and TM break that news to them.

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Speaker 6: The girls that didn't get on the show, like that's

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Speaker 6: way worse for them. Psychologically. I would have trust issues

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Speaker 6: for a really long time after that, because I remember

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Speaker 6: running into one of the girls like a year later

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Speaker 6: that had been in the group that thought they were

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Speaker 6: on the show first, and she said that they sat

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Speaker 6: in a bus for hours and then somebody came on

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Speaker 6: the bus and said that was all for show. You're

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Speaker 6: going home tomorrow, and Tyra Biggs did not say bye.

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Speaker 1: I asked Hannah why she thinks A and TM did that, Like,

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Speaker 1: what was the point of setting these girls up just

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Speaker 1: for the three minute payoff of saying hah, we gotcha.

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Speaker 6: I think at that point they really just loved like

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Speaker 6: the shock value of things, Like they realized that it

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Speaker 6: was a great formula for the audience too to be

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Speaker 6: surprised that this happened to them.

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Speaker 1: I think they also did it to put their test

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Speaker 1: subjects on edge, to make them feel like they never

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Speaker 1: knew what to expect. Unpredictability can cause anxiety, and anxiety

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Speaker 1: can cause people to act out. Hannah told me after

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Speaker 1: the casting prank she didn't know what to expect.

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Speaker 6: It was just such a strange couple of months, and like, honestly,

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Speaker 6: anytime that we walked into a room after that, point,

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Speaker 6: it felt like the floor was going to fall beneath us.

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Speaker 1: Her feelings were justified. On Hannah Season cycle sixteen, A

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Speaker 1: and TM really leaned into the psychological experiment thing. There

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Speaker 1: was one more incident Hannah told me about that was

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Speaker 1: so bad it didn't even air on the show. On

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Speaker 1: her season, Hannah made it to the international trip to Morocco.

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Speaker 1: She was one of the final three. While there, they

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Speaker 1: had a challenge where the contestants interviewed locals about beauty products,

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Speaker 1: except the people they were interviewing didn't speak English and

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Speaker 1: Hannah didn't speak the local language. She lost the challenge,

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Speaker 1: but instead of just awarding the winner a prize, A

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Speaker 1: and TM decided to also punish the two losers just

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Speaker 1: a heads up. The punishment was nasty, even by top

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Speaker 1: model standards, and it certainly didn't have anything to do

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Speaker 1: with modeling. When the challenge was over, Hannah and the

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Speaker 1: other losing contestant were led to a table on the

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Speaker 1: street with a tarp over it.

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Speaker 6: Somebody from production pulled off the tarp and it has

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Speaker 6: a cow's head that's severed and its tongue is hanging out,

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Speaker 6: and that's just like one of the pieces of animal carcass.

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Speaker 6: It's on the table. There's like organs, and there's like

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Speaker 6: a goat's foot, and there's just like all these different

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Speaker 6: like pieces of meat. And he said, you're going to

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Speaker 6: pick up these animal pieces and you're gonna put them

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Speaker 6: on the wagon that's attashed his donkey, and you're gonna

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Speaker 6: pull his donkey down.

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Speaker 2: The road to the butcher shot.

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Speaker 6: So Brittany and I have to team up to pick

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Speaker 6: up the cow's head. That's how heavy it was, and

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Speaker 6: we're both like gagging, like, you know, because it's not

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Speaker 6: like fresh, it's like griss. And we finally get all

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Speaker 6: the pieces onto.

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Speaker 1: The wagon and it got worth.

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Speaker 6: As we're picking up the pieces and everything, the Moroccans

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Speaker 6: are like around the table like watching us do this,

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Speaker 6: and they're all like Moroccan men who are like ha

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Speaker 6: ha ha. It felt like shame from Game of Arms,

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Speaker 6: and they were like shame.

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Speaker 9: You know.

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Speaker 6: It just felt so demeaning and like not fashion forward.

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Speaker 1: At all, Hannah told me when she looks back at

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Speaker 1: that moment, she regrets not telling the producers no. But

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Speaker 1: that's the thing about the great psychological experiment that is

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Speaker 1: reality TV. It's designed to push you to do stuff that,

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Speaker 1: under normal circumstances you'd never do.

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Speaker 6: I felt like that was a little piece of my

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Speaker 6: soul like kind of went in that meat lock or

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Speaker 6: two as far as like not putting my foot down

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Speaker 6: and saying no instead, I was like, Okay, I'll do

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Speaker 6: this for the sake of the show, because if I

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Speaker 6: do this, then maybe I could win the show. And

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Speaker 6: I felt like it was like just a really messed

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Speaker 6: up way for production and people who were writing those

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Speaker 6: pieces to just exercise their control and to kind of

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Speaker 6: laugh at us.

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Speaker 1: A and TM found makes their hose. A Taurus told

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Speaker 1: me that he and other crew members were aware of

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Speaker 1: this dynamic too.

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Speaker 10: You signed on to live in this bubble. The microscopes

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Speaker 10: are going to be on immediately. We're going to dissect

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Speaker 10: every word that you say, every step that you take.

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Speaker 10: I always thought the original concept for reality TV was

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Speaker 10: to just observe and see how people react to different

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Speaker 10: people in different circumstances, and you document that. But as

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Speaker 10: time goes on, you amp up the stress level.

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Speaker 1: It turns out sticking people in unnerving and uncomfortable situations

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Speaker 1: to see how they react is the very cornerstone of

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Speaker 1: reality programming.

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Speaker 9: Here's the candid subject.

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Speaker 11: Here comes the candid count of staff, three of them.

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Speaker 12: At least.

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Speaker 1: To really understand where America's next top model came from,

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Speaker 1: we have to go back in time, way back to

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Speaker 1: the nineteen forties. That's where we're going after the break.

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Speaker 1: A and TM premiered in two thousand and three, and

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Speaker 1: let me tell y'all, what a time to be alive.

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Speaker 1: There were the reality shows like The Osbournes and Laguna

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Speaker 1: Beach that gave us a glimpse into the lives of

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Speaker 1: the rich and famous to let us know there are

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Speaker 1: truly nothing like us. And then there were the shows

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Speaker 1: that were making dreams come true. If you wanted to

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Speaker 1: be a singer but never got that big break, American

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Speaker 1: Idol could make you a star. And if you wanted

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Speaker 1: to know what it feels like to have twenty desperate

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Speaker 1: debutantes fighting for your affection, you could go on The Bachelor.

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Speaker 1: If you wanted to be a millionaire and you weren't

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Speaker 1: good at trivia, you could voluntarily strand yourself on an

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Speaker 1: island for weeks and play mind games with strangers on

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Speaker 1: the Swan. Self proclaimed ugly people could get plastic surgery

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Speaker 1: so that their inner beauty would finally be reflected outside.

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Speaker 1: This is the landscape A ANDTM was born into. But

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Speaker 1: reality TV didn't start in the early two thousands, and

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Speaker 1: it definitely wasn't invented by Tyra Banks.

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Speaker 2: My name is Amanda Ann Klein. I am professor of

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Speaker 2: Film Studies at East Carolina University. I've also written a

439
00:25:13,720 --> 00:25:15,920
Speaker 2: book called Millennials Killed the Video Star.

440
00:25:16,520 --> 00:25:19,120
Speaker 1: Y'all know Amanda. She pretty much has my dream job.

441
00:25:19,440 --> 00:25:22,680
Speaker 1: She's a reality TV historian and expert, and she's going

442
00:25:22,720 --> 00:25:26,160
Speaker 1: to be our guide for this brief journey through reality programming.

443
00:25:28,320 --> 00:25:31,679
Speaker 1: Reality based television wasn't really possible before the advent of

444
00:25:31,760 --> 00:25:36,320
Speaker 1: handheld cameras, portable sound equipment, and fast film stop. But

445
00:25:36,600 --> 00:25:40,400
Speaker 1: almost as soon as the tech was available, production studios

446
00:25:40,440 --> 00:25:42,960
Speaker 1: decided to use it to make fools out of everyday

447
00:25:43,000 --> 00:25:44,679
Speaker 1: people for our entertainment.

448
00:25:45,480 --> 00:25:50,000
Speaker 2: So there was this post war belief that technology will

449
00:25:50,000 --> 00:25:53,560
Speaker 2: allow us to uncover the secrets of kind of human

450
00:25:53,640 --> 00:25:57,440
Speaker 2: behaviors that were not accessible prior to this technology.

451
00:26:00,400 --> 00:26:03,840
Speaker 1: The first show to test out this theory was Candid Camera.

452
00:26:04,400 --> 00:26:07,440
Speaker 1: You might remember iterations of it from the seventies, nineties,

453
00:26:07,440 --> 00:26:10,600
Speaker 1: and early two thousands, but the show first premiered in

454
00:26:10,680 --> 00:26:15,560
Speaker 1: nineteen forty eight, Smile You were on Candid Camera.

455
00:26:17,440 --> 00:26:21,080
Speaker 2: They were like many psychological experiments, and there would generally

456
00:26:21,160 --> 00:26:23,560
Speaker 2: be a mark, so someone who didn't know that they

457
00:26:23,560 --> 00:26:27,040
Speaker 2: were being recorded. That was key. And one of the

458
00:26:27,080 --> 00:26:31,200
Speaker 2: more famous examples involves an elevator full of people who

459
00:26:31,200 --> 00:26:32,360
Speaker 2: are all part of the production.

460
00:26:33,400 --> 00:26:37,480
Speaker 11: The gentleman in the elevator now is a candid star.

461
00:26:37,920 --> 00:26:40,359
Speaker 11: These folks who are entering, the man with a white shirt,

462
00:26:40,400 --> 00:26:44,320
Speaker 11: the lady with a trench coat, and subsequently one other

463
00:26:44,359 --> 00:26:46,960
Speaker 11: member of us there will face.

464
00:26:46,760 --> 00:26:50,640
Speaker 2: The rear when the mark walks in. The person who

465
00:26:50,680 --> 00:26:54,119
Speaker 2: doesn't know he's being recorded. The people in the elevator

466
00:26:54,160 --> 00:26:57,720
Speaker 2: all turn at once to the left, and he looks around.

467
00:26:57,760 --> 00:27:00,200
Speaker 2: He's a little confused, and then he turns.

468
00:27:00,600 --> 00:27:04,320
Speaker 9: And you'll see how this man in the trench car,

469
00:27:10,680 --> 00:27:16,600
Speaker 9: he tries to maintain his individuality.

470
00:27:16,000 --> 00:27:17,480
Speaker 5: But a little by little.

471
00:27:22,920 --> 00:27:25,640
Speaker 11: He looks at his watch, but he's really making an

472
00:27:25,640 --> 00:27:30,520
Speaker 11: excuse for turning just a little bit more. A little

473
00:27:30,520 --> 00:27:33,520
Speaker 11: all I would try it once again.

474
00:27:34,359 --> 00:27:38,240
Speaker 2: Then they all turn to the back and he again

475
00:27:38,400 --> 00:27:41,280
Speaker 2: is like, well damn okay, and he turns.

476
00:27:41,440 --> 00:27:43,879
Speaker 1: And this goes on for a while, everyone in this

477
00:27:43,960 --> 00:27:47,040
Speaker 1: elevator just randomly turning at the same time, and this

478
00:27:47,119 --> 00:27:50,920
Speaker 1: poor guy following their lead. In nineteen forty eight, this

479
00:27:51,080 --> 00:27:56,960
Speaker 1: was peak television. Audiences could watch real people experiencing seemingly

480
00:27:57,080 --> 00:28:01,320
Speaker 1: real dilemmas and see how they would react punped before punped.

481
00:28:02,119 --> 00:28:05,800
Speaker 1: But Candid Camera's hosts Alan Funt, wasn't just playing these

482
00:28:05,840 --> 00:28:09,119
Speaker 1: practical jokes for shits and giggles. He was interested in

483
00:28:09,240 --> 00:28:10,360
Speaker 1: something deeper.

484
00:28:12,480 --> 00:28:14,360
Speaker 2: A lot of this has to do with post World

485
00:28:14,440 --> 00:28:18,440
Speaker 2: War two culture and the sense of what makes group

486
00:28:18,520 --> 00:28:22,000
Speaker 2: think happen. How could these atrocities of World War Two

487
00:28:22,119 --> 00:28:25,680
Speaker 2: have happened to just normal, regular moral people.

488
00:28:26,440 --> 00:28:30,080
Speaker 1: Remember what doctor Stein said about the Stanford prison experiment

489
00:28:30,119 --> 00:28:34,000
Speaker 1: in the nineteen seventies. Those researchers were also interested in

490
00:28:34,080 --> 00:28:37,760
Speaker 1: what drove people to commit atrocities during World War Two.

491
00:28:38,320 --> 00:28:41,280
Speaker 1: This guy Alan Funt was looking into it thirty years before,

492
00:28:41,520 --> 00:28:42,760
Speaker 1: and he made it entertaining.

493
00:28:43,520 --> 00:28:46,320
Speaker 2: So there was a lot of investigation into that in

494
00:28:46,360 --> 00:28:49,920
Speaker 2: the world of psychology, and Alan Funt was very interested

495
00:28:49,920 --> 00:28:53,480
Speaker 2: in that. As a result, Candid Camera was actually studied

496
00:28:53,480 --> 00:28:56,520
Speaker 2: a lot in the sixties by psychologists, but.

497
00:28:56,600 --> 00:29:02,040
Speaker 1: Not all reality programming was a deep psychological explorer. Some

498
00:29:02,200 --> 00:29:05,640
Speaker 1: of it was a lot more reminiscent of contemporary reality TV,

499
00:29:06,440 --> 00:29:09,160
Speaker 1: people laying their pain and trauma bear in front of

500
00:29:09,240 --> 00:29:12,520
Speaker 1: audiences in the hopes of gaining fame, fortune, and in

501
00:29:12,560 --> 00:29:14,800
Speaker 1: this case, nominal prizes.

502
00:29:15,280 --> 00:29:18,280
Speaker 13: What you like to be Queen for to Day.

503
00:29:22,080 --> 00:29:25,280
Speaker 2: Queen for a Day ran from the mid forties up

504
00:29:25,480 --> 00:29:29,200
Speaker 2: through the mid sixties. First it was on radio, and

505
00:29:29,240 --> 00:29:32,000
Speaker 2: then starting in nineteen fifty six, it goes on TV.

506
00:29:32,960 --> 00:29:36,160
Speaker 1: When it comes to early reality TV shows, this one

507
00:29:36,320 --> 00:29:39,280
Speaker 1: might be the most disturbing of all, and I think

508
00:29:39,280 --> 00:29:42,560
Speaker 1: it tells us a lot about later prize based shows

509
00:29:42,640 --> 00:29:43,440
Speaker 1: like Top Model.

510
00:29:44,280 --> 00:29:47,480
Speaker 2: The premise of Queen for a Day is pretty wild.

511
00:29:47,840 --> 00:29:52,040
Speaker 2: So women right into the show and they tell the

512
00:29:52,080 --> 00:29:56,640
Speaker 2: producers about their sob story and it's pretty bad stuff.

513
00:29:57,080 --> 00:30:02,239
Speaker 2: A woman whose son has holy and he's bedbound, so

514
00:30:02,280 --> 00:30:05,160
Speaker 2: she wants a rolling bed so she can take him

515
00:30:05,160 --> 00:30:08,080
Speaker 2: out into the sun. A woman who has a lot

516
00:30:08,160 --> 00:30:11,880
Speaker 2: of children, she just wants wood so she can build

517
00:30:11,960 --> 00:30:15,680
Speaker 2: bunk beds for them to sleep in. It's awful. So

518
00:30:16,840 --> 00:30:20,840
Speaker 2: they pick four women and they're all seated in the audience.

519
00:30:21,400 --> 00:30:25,280
Speaker 2: They come up, the host interviews them and at the

520
00:30:25,360 --> 00:30:27,800
Speaker 2: end of the show, they place all the women on

521
00:30:27,880 --> 00:30:32,160
Speaker 2: camera and the audience collapsed for the saddus story, and

522
00:30:32,200 --> 00:30:36,040
Speaker 2: then the winner becomes queen for a day and they

523
00:30:36,080 --> 00:30:37,800
Speaker 2: get the thing that they asked for.

524
00:30:38,600 --> 00:30:41,080
Speaker 1: The show was shot in front of a studio audience,

525
00:30:41,440 --> 00:30:44,880
Speaker 1: and these matronly women are escorted on stage by young

526
00:30:44,960 --> 00:30:48,240
Speaker 1: models in mini dresses to meet this host who's honestly

527
00:30:48,440 --> 00:30:53,680
Speaker 1: just over the top. Every episode is riddled with ads

528
00:30:53,720 --> 00:30:57,360
Speaker 1: and sponsorship plugs, Like literally every five minutes they're trying

529
00:30:57,400 --> 00:31:00,560
Speaker 1: to sell you some ran rap or jewelry or wash sauce.

530
00:31:00,600 --> 00:31:03,840
Speaker 1: For some reason, this particular episode you're about to hear

531
00:31:04,080 --> 00:31:07,560
Speaker 1: was sponsored by the egg industry, so all the contestants

532
00:31:07,600 --> 00:31:11,080
Speaker 1: have something to do with eggs. The first woman works

533
00:31:11,120 --> 00:31:14,000
Speaker 1: the night shift as an egg candler, which apparently is

534
00:31:14,040 --> 00:31:16,160
Speaker 1: the person who takes the bad eggs off the conveyor

535
00:31:16,240 --> 00:31:17,480
Speaker 1: belt before they're packaged.

536
00:31:17,760 --> 00:31:19,920
Speaker 4: Well, all, my husband's been disabled for the last ten

537
00:31:20,000 --> 00:31:22,280
Speaker 4: years and it's beIN up to me to make a living,

538
00:31:22,280 --> 00:31:24,000
Speaker 4: and I've been very thankful that I've had a good

539
00:31:24,040 --> 00:31:24,720
Speaker 4: job that I could.

540
00:31:25,160 --> 00:31:27,520
Speaker 1: This woman went on the show because it was offering

541
00:31:27,520 --> 00:31:31,160
Speaker 1: her something she couldn't afford. A set of adjustable stools

542
00:31:31,440 --> 00:31:34,080
Speaker 1: so that she and her coworkers could sit more comfortably

543
00:31:34,120 --> 00:31:38,000
Speaker 1: as they sort the eggs. These were mostly working white

544
00:31:38,000 --> 00:31:40,480
Speaker 1: women at a time when only a quarter to a

545
00:31:40,560 --> 00:31:44,000
Speaker 1: third of white women worked outside of their homes. This

546
00:31:44,160 --> 00:31:47,640
Speaker 1: is also in an era of respectability politics, a time

547
00:31:47,680 --> 00:31:50,960
Speaker 1: when you didn't air your dirty laundry, even to your neighbors.

548
00:31:51,560 --> 00:31:55,360
Speaker 1: And these women are going on national television saying they're broke,

549
00:31:55,840 --> 00:31:58,640
Speaker 1: and they're not doing it for fame. They're doing it

550
00:31:58,680 --> 00:32:01,959
Speaker 1: because they've been promised the chance to win. You can

551
00:32:02,040 --> 00:32:03,760
Speaker 1: even see it in the episode and hear it in

552
00:32:03,800 --> 00:32:08,520
Speaker 1: their voices. They're nervous, uncomfortable, even like this next woman

553
00:32:08,720 --> 00:32:11,680
Speaker 1: who ran a chicken farm with her husband. She had

554
00:32:11,720 --> 00:32:16,040
Speaker 1: a pained, nervous look on her face. She's fidgeting, almost shaking.

555
00:32:16,480 --> 00:32:19,120
Speaker 1: She doesn't even know how to answer the questions, how.

556
00:32:18,960 --> 00:32:20,120
Speaker 3: Many kids you got three?

557
00:32:20,240 --> 00:32:20,880
Speaker 12: How many chicken?

558
00:32:21,680 --> 00:32:22,680
Speaker 1: About seven thousand?

559
00:32:23,560 --> 00:32:26,000
Speaker 12: Holy boy? How many eggs did the chicken lay today?

560
00:32:26,680 --> 00:32:27,160
Speaker 6: Ours?

561
00:32:27,320 --> 00:32:27,960
Speaker 12: Yeah?

562
00:32:28,040 --> 00:32:30,000
Speaker 1: About three thousand? Right now?

563
00:32:31,880 --> 00:32:34,840
Speaker 12: You didn't hear the question, I guess how many eggs

564
00:32:34,840 --> 00:32:35,920
Speaker 12: does up chicken lay?

565
00:32:36,080 --> 00:32:36,400
Speaker 6: Oh?

566
00:32:36,480 --> 00:32:38,360
Speaker 12: If you got one to lady seven thousand, you and

567
00:32:38,440 --> 00:32:39,000
Speaker 12: I can get.

568
00:32:38,840 --> 00:32:41,640
Speaker 1: Pretty rich on the average one day.

569
00:32:41,640 --> 00:32:43,840
Speaker 12: I think how many roasters per Lady Chicken.

570
00:32:44,480 --> 00:32:49,240
Speaker 13: None, she's new in the egg business.

571
00:32:49,560 --> 00:32:52,000
Speaker 1: There's no way this woman was on the show to

572
00:32:52,040 --> 00:32:55,840
Speaker 1: be famous like reality TV contestants we see today. She

573
00:32:55,960 --> 00:32:58,880
Speaker 1: was on Queen for a Day because she desperately wanted

574
00:32:58,960 --> 00:33:01,840
Speaker 1: to get her son expensive gift. I would like to have,

575
00:33:01,920 --> 00:33:04,960
Speaker 1: more than anything in the world, a record player for

576
00:33:05,120 --> 00:33:10,120
Speaker 1: my boy. You just had open heart surgery in February.

577
00:33:10,240 --> 00:33:11,320
Speaker 12: I was this little boy.

578
00:33:11,320 --> 00:33:12,960
Speaker 1: Fifteen, he was fifteen Saturday.

579
00:33:13,080 --> 00:33:13,680
Speaker 12: What's his name?

580
00:33:13,960 --> 00:33:18,560
Speaker 1: Chesterirs, Old Chester? And it only gets more sad and desperate.

581
00:33:19,320 --> 00:33:23,040
Speaker 1: Woman number three, whose husband was apparently a teacher, pastor

582
00:33:23,240 --> 00:33:26,600
Speaker 1: and egg man, wanted an tercom so she could keep

583
00:33:26,640 --> 00:33:28,120
Speaker 1: track of her five kids.

584
00:33:28,520 --> 00:33:31,880
Speaker 10: I candle eggs and the egg room quite long, and

585
00:33:31,960 --> 00:33:34,120
Speaker 10: I got to keep track of the children in the house.

586
00:33:34,240 --> 00:33:37,360
Speaker 1: Sure, and it's quite a waste to run back and forth.

587
00:33:37,680 --> 00:33:41,080
Speaker 1: And finally there was woman number four, who maybe had

588
00:33:41,120 --> 00:33:43,280
Speaker 1: the most odd but sweet request.

589
00:33:43,640 --> 00:33:45,080
Speaker 2: I like to have eighty moon moves.

590
00:33:45,280 --> 00:33:45,400
Speaker 3: Now.

591
00:33:45,440 --> 00:33:48,720
Speaker 12: That scared me a little bit, and I too, you

592
00:33:48,800 --> 00:33:53,360
Speaker 12: could use, but she wanted eighty And what a nice

593
00:33:53,400 --> 00:33:55,960
Speaker 12: reason tell it. I have a daughter in Pacific State

594
00:33:56,000 --> 00:33:58,440
Speaker 12: Hospital and they're going to have a blue owl this fall,

595
00:33:58,560 --> 00:34:01,360
Speaker 12: and I wanted the moon moves the girls explain, if

596
00:34:01,400 --> 00:34:03,760
Speaker 12: you don't mind, what is that school that your little

597
00:34:03,800 --> 00:34:05,280
Speaker 12: daughter attends. It's a special school.

598
00:34:05,400 --> 00:34:07,600
Speaker 1: It's a school for the pandicapped, and.

599
00:34:07,600 --> 00:34:10,200
Speaker 12: They're going to have a luau. You want eighty little

600
00:34:10,200 --> 00:34:13,200
Speaker 12: girls to go to this luau all dressed in moon moos.

601
00:34:13,360 --> 00:34:15,640
Speaker 12: I can't think of a nicer thing for those kids.

602
00:34:15,880 --> 00:34:16,680
Speaker 12: Now we're going to have.

603
00:34:16,640 --> 00:34:19,239
Speaker 13: A queen right now, and here we go. Number one,

604
00:34:19,360 --> 00:34:20,400
Speaker 13: missus Irma Franklin.

605
00:34:20,640 --> 00:34:24,680
Speaker 12: Number one, Thank you.

606
00:34:25,280 --> 00:34:27,279
Speaker 13: Number two, you want a phonograph of that boy?

607
00:34:27,440 --> 00:34:33,000
Speaker 1: Number two. The crowd chose number four, the Moomoo lady,

608
00:34:33,360 --> 00:34:35,920
Speaker 1: but the moon moves were not her only prize.

609
00:34:36,120 --> 00:34:37,920
Speaker 13: And here's a good way to start with this handsome

610
00:34:38,000 --> 00:34:39,800
Speaker 13: queen for a day watch by hell Bros. It was

611
00:34:39,840 --> 00:34:42,240
Speaker 13: designed just for our queens and has two tiny diamond

612
00:34:42,280 --> 00:34:44,719
Speaker 13: encrusted crowns adorning the face. Now, you put in a

613
00:34:44,719 --> 00:34:47,000
Speaker 13: lot of work there, and I'm sure that the perfect

614
00:34:47,000 --> 00:34:49,439
Speaker 13: way to relax the day's end will be a great

615
00:34:49,480 --> 00:34:52,320
Speaker 13: comfort to you. It's with a jacuzzi whirlpool bat.

616
00:34:54,400 --> 00:34:57,360
Speaker 1: She also got a canopy bed a gift certificate to

617
00:34:57,360 --> 00:35:00,560
Speaker 1: shop in a catalog and you'll love this. The woman

618
00:35:00,560 --> 00:35:04,399
Speaker 1: who ran an egg farm got a year's supply of eggs.

619
00:35:04,840 --> 00:35:10,399
Speaker 2: What really makes the show so surreal is that not

620
00:35:10,440 --> 00:35:12,680
Speaker 2: only does she get the price she asked for, but

621
00:35:12,760 --> 00:35:16,880
Speaker 2: she gets all these sponsor gifts and they're completely inappropriate

622
00:35:16,960 --> 00:35:19,919
Speaker 2: for the women that are going to witness. So it's

623
00:35:20,040 --> 00:35:25,279
Speaker 2: like outfits for the country club. Every woman will look

624
00:35:25,440 --> 00:35:32,520
Speaker 2: chic in this matching polyester tennis outfit. It's outrageous. There's

625
00:35:32,560 --> 00:35:36,520
Speaker 2: this huge disconnect. So when we talk about ethics and

626
00:35:36,600 --> 00:35:40,799
Speaker 2: reality TV, even back in the fifties, we were doing

627
00:35:40,880 --> 00:35:45,719
Speaker 2: some pretty suspect things. This point, Amanda makes is the

628
00:35:45,760 --> 00:35:48,120
Speaker 2: reason why we just listen to all of that, Other

629
00:35:48,160 --> 00:35:50,120
Speaker 2: than I just wanted you to hear how ridiculous that

630
00:35:50,160 --> 00:35:55,520
Speaker 2: show is. Almost from the beginning, when we decided to

631
00:35:55,560 --> 00:35:58,800
Speaker 2: put real people on television to hear their real stories,

632
00:35:59,239 --> 00:36:01,000
Speaker 2: the ethical life were blurred.

633
00:36:02,040 --> 00:36:05,200
Speaker 1: These women were more than likely not rich. I mean,

634
00:36:05,239 --> 00:36:08,960
Speaker 1: the first women couldn't even afford some stools. But producers

635
00:36:09,040 --> 00:36:12,520
Speaker 1: understood that if they dangled the promise of something people

636
00:36:12,520 --> 00:36:15,680
Speaker 1: couldn't otherwise get on their own, they would be willing

637
00:36:15,760 --> 00:36:21,400
Speaker 1: to do stuff they wouldn't normally do. It's something we

638
00:36:21,480 --> 00:36:24,520
Speaker 1: saw all the time on A and TM. Queen for

639
00:36:24,600 --> 00:36:29,520
Speaker 1: a Day is an early example of how desperation became entertainment.

640
00:36:30,320 --> 00:36:32,640
Speaker 1: By the time Tyra Banks and Kim Mock came along,

641
00:36:33,080 --> 00:36:36,759
Speaker 1: they intuitively understood that the most desperate people make the

642
00:36:36,800 --> 00:36:42,440
Speaker 1: best contestants. For a long time, Candid Camera, Queen for

643
00:36:42,480 --> 00:36:45,360
Speaker 1: a Day in game shows were really the only type

644
00:36:45,360 --> 00:36:49,000
Speaker 1: of reality television programming. That is until the mother of

645
00:36:49,120 --> 00:36:52,080
Speaker 1: reality TV as we know it premiered in the nineteen

646
00:36:52,120 --> 00:36:54,960
Speaker 1: seventies on PBS, of all places.

647
00:36:56,160 --> 00:36:58,200
Speaker 7: During the next hour, you will see the first in

648
00:36:58,239 --> 00:37:01,280
Speaker 7: a series of programs in time, An American Family.

649
00:37:02,160 --> 00:37:06,640
Speaker 2: An American Family comes out in nineteen seventy three. It

650
00:37:06,719 --> 00:37:10,680
Speaker 2: is a PBS show and it is what we would

651
00:37:11,000 --> 00:37:17,319
Speaker 2: consider the first serialized form of reality TV. What made

652
00:37:17,320 --> 00:37:20,800
Speaker 2: An American Family different is that it told a story,

653
00:37:21,080 --> 00:37:23,160
Speaker 2: a continuous story across episodes.

654
00:37:23,600 --> 00:37:26,560
Speaker 7: The series is about the William C. Loud family of

655
00:37:26,600 --> 00:37:32,880
Speaker 7: Santa Barbara, California. For seven months from May thirtieth, nineteen

656
00:37:33,000 --> 00:37:38,280
Speaker 7: seventy one to January first, nineteen seventy two, the family

657
00:37:38,400 --> 00:37:41,840
Speaker 7: was filmed as they went about their daily routine.

658
00:37:42,560 --> 00:37:45,400
Speaker 1: An American family doesn't sound like the reality TV we

659
00:37:45,480 --> 00:37:49,200
Speaker 1: watched today. It just sounds like a really mundane documentary

660
00:37:49,239 --> 00:37:51,480
Speaker 1: about the day to day lives of a typical family.

661
00:37:52,320 --> 00:37:55,200
Speaker 1: But when you think about it, being there to capture

662
00:37:55,239 --> 00:37:57,719
Speaker 1: the day to day life while happening to catch the

663
00:37:57,760 --> 00:38:01,800
Speaker 1: truly unhanged drama is the base of all docusob reality.

664
00:38:02,440 --> 00:38:06,040
Speaker 1: Think about the Kardashians, or the Real Housewives or Jersey Shore.

665
00:38:06,719 --> 00:38:11,759
Speaker 1: An American family pioneered the whole genre. Half of Antium

666
00:38:11,840 --> 00:38:14,399
Speaker 1: was the plot of the modeling competition, but the other

667
00:38:14,480 --> 00:38:17,000
Speaker 1: half was about the drama in the house. You know,

668
00:38:17,280 --> 00:38:21,239
Speaker 1: who'll stole my granola bar? An American family was the

669
00:38:21,360 --> 00:38:24,120
Speaker 1: earliest example of this type of reality TV.

670
00:38:25,239 --> 00:38:28,880
Speaker 2: It's the first time people said, come into my house,

671
00:38:29,400 --> 00:38:32,479
Speaker 2: come into my life. You're inviting the camera in, which

672
00:38:32,520 --> 00:38:36,080
Speaker 2: is a very different relationship with the camera. I teach

673
00:38:36,120 --> 00:38:39,279
Speaker 2: it in my reality TV class, and one thing that

674
00:38:39,360 --> 00:38:43,520
Speaker 2: I find interesting is how the students get frustrated with

675
00:38:43,680 --> 00:38:48,080
Speaker 2: the downtime because we're so used to reality shows kind

676
00:38:48,080 --> 00:38:50,160
Speaker 2: of you know, give us this, give us that, give

677
00:38:50,239 --> 00:38:53,359
Speaker 2: us the reaction, whereas this was more in kind of

678
00:38:53,400 --> 00:38:57,800
Speaker 2: the direct cinema documentary tradition where you might just see

679
00:38:57,840 --> 00:39:00,800
Speaker 2: someone you know, their finger, I mean, on the table

680
00:39:00,840 --> 00:39:04,040
Speaker 2: for a while as a boring conversation happens.

681
00:39:07,560 --> 00:39:13,640
Speaker 6: Oh, just you know, a bunch of kids, Kevin.

682
00:39:14,760 --> 00:39:15,640
Speaker 7: Nothing much.

683
00:39:17,680 --> 00:39:21,440
Speaker 1: Here, But eventually some real life drama happened.

684
00:39:22,440 --> 00:39:25,200
Speaker 2: They got a lot of crazy content out of that,

685
00:39:25,360 --> 00:39:29,920
Speaker 2: because the husband and wife ultimately divorce by the end.

686
00:39:31,840 --> 00:39:35,520
Speaker 1: A tense breakup unfolding before our eyes. Oh now, it's

687
00:39:35,560 --> 00:39:39,000
Speaker 1: starting to sound familiar. And that wasn't the only scandalous

688
00:39:39,040 --> 00:39:41,400
Speaker 1: thing happening in this average American family.

689
00:39:42,080 --> 00:39:46,800
Speaker 2: Their son basically comes out as gay. It's very coded,

690
00:39:46,880 --> 00:39:50,000
Speaker 2: but there's a whole episode of his mother visiting him

691
00:39:50,040 --> 00:39:53,600
Speaker 2: at the Chelsea Hotel in New York where like they

692
00:39:53,600 --> 00:39:55,320
Speaker 2: go to this crazy drag show.

693
00:39:55,680 --> 00:39:58,240
Speaker 1: Oh now, we got some controversy, at least by nineteen

694
00:39:58,280 --> 00:39:59,920
Speaker 1: seventy three standards.

695
00:40:00,000 --> 00:40:03,200
Speaker 2: And it obviously caused a huge stir when it came out.

696
00:40:03,280 --> 00:40:05,520
Speaker 2: Some people were like, it's the end of America, right,

697
00:40:05,920 --> 00:40:08,520
Speaker 2: We're seeing an American family fall apart, where you know,

698
00:40:08,600 --> 00:40:11,000
Speaker 2: we've got this guy who's clearly gay.

699
00:40:12,239 --> 00:40:15,360
Speaker 1: The family son Lance later came out as gay. I

700
00:40:15,360 --> 00:40:18,239
Speaker 1: don't think an American Family. Producers knew Lance was in

701
00:40:18,280 --> 00:40:20,399
Speaker 1: the process of coming out when they chose to cast

702
00:40:20,440 --> 00:40:23,600
Speaker 1: the Loud family, but it became the most interesting thing

703
00:40:23,640 --> 00:40:28,200
Speaker 1: about the whole show. Years later, when the reality genre

704
00:40:28,360 --> 00:40:31,200
Speaker 1: started to pick up, producers took a page from An

705
00:40:31,200 --> 00:40:35,560
Speaker 1: American Family. The cast people who were outsiders who are different,

706
00:40:35,960 --> 00:40:40,800
Speaker 1: because that brought in viewers. Even with all the makings

707
00:40:40,800 --> 00:40:45,000
Speaker 1: of great reality TV, An American Family didn't really inspire

708
00:40:45,120 --> 00:40:48,640
Speaker 1: any other reality programming. For a while, it was seen

709
00:40:48,680 --> 00:40:52,240
Speaker 1: as an artsy docuseries, not something to be replicated season

710
00:40:52,280 --> 00:40:56,399
Speaker 1: after season. After it, we had shows like Cops, which

711
00:40:56,440 --> 00:40:59,440
Speaker 1: presented itself as raw reality from the perspective of the

712
00:40:59,480 --> 00:41:02,440
Speaker 1: police Star Search, which I guess is a bit like

713
00:41:02,480 --> 00:41:06,680
Speaker 1: American Idol and America's Funniest Home Videos, where every week

714
00:41:06,719 --> 00:41:09,400
Speaker 1: a lucky family was rewarded for catching the moment when

715
00:41:09,440 --> 00:41:11,759
Speaker 1: some poor dad gets knocked upside the head with a

716
00:41:11,840 --> 00:41:17,319
Speaker 1: pinata sea But nothing like An American Family. That is

717
00:41:17,400 --> 00:41:21,400
Speaker 1: until nineteen ninety two when MTV premiered The Real World.

718
00:41:21,840 --> 00:41:27,200
Speaker 14: This is the True Story True story Seven strangers picked.

719
00:41:26,920 --> 00:41:28,560
Speaker 2: To live in a lot and have.

720
00:41:28,640 --> 00:41:32,120
Speaker 1: Their lives taped to find out what happens.

721
00:41:32,000 --> 00:41:33,560
Speaker 12: When people stop being polite?

722
00:41:33,640 --> 00:41:34,840
Speaker 1: Could you get the phone.

723
00:41:34,800 --> 00:41:35,879
Speaker 2: And start getting real?

724
00:41:36,040 --> 00:41:36,800
Speaker 1: The Real World.

725
00:41:38,400 --> 00:41:41,600
Speaker 2: The reason why they decide to do The Real World

726
00:41:42,000 --> 00:41:45,680
Speaker 2: at MTV is because the ratings were kind of flagging.

727
00:41:46,320 --> 00:41:49,200
Speaker 2: They still obviously did a lot of music videos, but

728
00:41:49,680 --> 00:41:53,440
Speaker 2: people were kind of losing interest, and so they saw

729
00:41:53,520 --> 00:41:56,879
Speaker 2: that something that young audiences really loved was Beverly Host

730
00:41:56,960 --> 00:42:00,719
Speaker 2: nine O two and zero. So MTV thought, let's do that.

731
00:42:00,880 --> 00:42:04,000
Speaker 2: Let's do a scripted show. But it turns out it's

732
00:42:04,040 --> 00:42:08,040
Speaker 2: really expensive, right, You need writers, you need actors, all

733
00:42:08,080 --> 00:42:13,360
Speaker 2: that stuff. So instead they went for a reality TV format.

734
00:42:14,760 --> 00:42:16,520
Speaker 1: If you go back to the first season of the

735
00:42:16,560 --> 00:42:19,520
Speaker 1: Real World, you'll notice that everyone was an artist of

736
00:42:19,560 --> 00:42:21,760
Speaker 1: some kind trying to make it in New York City.

737
00:42:22,239 --> 00:42:25,640
Speaker 1: It was a group of young dancers, actors, rappers, and singers,

738
00:42:26,040 --> 00:42:28,000
Speaker 1: all hoping to get their big break.

739
00:42:28,800 --> 00:42:31,239
Speaker 2: They were actually led to believe that this was going

740
00:42:31,320 --> 00:42:33,840
Speaker 2: to really focus on their art and kind of launch

741
00:42:33,920 --> 00:42:34,680
Speaker 2: their careers.

742
00:42:35,400 --> 00:42:38,160
Speaker 1: MTV's The Real World was the first time when people

743
00:42:38,200 --> 00:42:41,800
Speaker 1: started using reality TV as a platform or a means

744
00:42:41,800 --> 00:42:45,600
Speaker 1: to launch the career they actually wanted. At this point,

745
00:42:45,640 --> 00:42:48,520
Speaker 1: there was no such thing as a reality star and

746
00:42:48,600 --> 00:42:51,800
Speaker 1: for the first two seasons the show was well boring

747
00:42:52,120 --> 00:42:55,520
Speaker 1: and the writings were bad. That is until the third

748
00:42:55,560 --> 00:42:59,640
Speaker 1: season featured Pedro ol Zamora, an HIV positive gay man.

749
00:43:00,120 --> 00:43:01,840
Speaker 12: I am a person living with age, and I am

750
00:43:01,880 --> 00:43:05,080
Speaker 12: a gay man, and I am Hispanic, I'm a person

751
00:43:05,080 --> 00:43:07,759
Speaker 12: of color, and this simply who I am.

752
00:43:08,400 --> 00:43:11,040
Speaker 2: You know, the AIDS crisis was kind of at its

753
00:43:11,080 --> 00:43:15,479
Speaker 2: peak at that time. It was pretty remarkable to put

754
00:43:15,520 --> 00:43:19,000
Speaker 2: an HIV positive gay man on TV.

755
00:43:20,120 --> 00:43:23,600
Speaker 1: Pedro was a sympathetic hero you could root for, but

756
00:43:23,680 --> 00:43:26,640
Speaker 1: this wasn't an artsy docu series. They needed to bring

757
00:43:26,680 --> 00:43:30,080
Speaker 1: the drama to stay on air. And every hero needs

758
00:43:30,080 --> 00:43:36,160
Speaker 1: a villain. Enter a puck who was antagonistic and openly homophobic.

759
00:43:36,680 --> 00:43:40,480
Speaker 2: Great idea, right, They put on someone who was abrasive,

760
00:43:41,000 --> 00:43:43,799
Speaker 2: who didn't back down, and as a result, you had

761
00:43:43,840 --> 00:43:46,600
Speaker 2: your perfect villain and you had your perfect fit. Though

762
00:43:46,960 --> 00:43:48,960
Speaker 2: very melodramatic structure.

763
00:43:48,960 --> 00:43:54,400
Speaker 1: That structure eventually became the backbone of reality TV. Producers

764
00:43:54,480 --> 00:43:57,800
Speaker 1: understood that rooting for your faiths isn't as fun without

765
00:43:57,840 --> 00:44:01,520
Speaker 1: someone to root against. That tried in true formula. It's

766
00:44:01,520 --> 00:44:05,080
Speaker 1: something we see season after season on a certain reality

767
00:44:05,080 --> 00:44:09,160
Speaker 1: modeling competition show. I don't think casting Pedro was some

768
00:44:09,320 --> 00:44:13,279
Speaker 1: altruistic act humanizing the AIDS crisis. I think they were

769
00:44:13,360 --> 00:44:16,800
Speaker 1: using his identity to stir up conflict, just like I

770
00:44:16,840 --> 00:44:19,319
Speaker 1: think A and TM did when they cast Isis King

771
00:44:19,440 --> 00:44:24,800
Speaker 1: as the show's first trans woman. The Real World's success

772
00:44:24,920 --> 00:44:27,320
Speaker 1: was a turning point in the history of reality TV.

773
00:44:28,280 --> 00:44:32,840
Speaker 1: After nineteen ninety five, new shows started popping up like Daisies, Judge,

774
00:44:32,880 --> 00:44:36,399
Speaker 1: Judy Making, the Band, Big Brother, Fear Factor, The Amazing Race,

775
00:44:36,440 --> 00:44:41,440
Speaker 1: American Idol, The Bachelor Survivor. And here's one big reason

776
00:44:41,560 --> 00:44:45,000
Speaker 1: reality TV exploded. It's a lot cheaper to make than

777
00:44:45,040 --> 00:44:49,680
Speaker 1: scripted programming. Networks realized they could get the same viewership

778
00:44:49,960 --> 00:44:51,960
Speaker 1: for a fraction of the cost of a show like

779
00:44:52,080 --> 00:44:56,200
Speaker 1: Gilmour Girls or X Files. There were no pesky actors, unions,

780
00:44:56,239 --> 00:44:58,360
Speaker 1: no costume designers, and no writers.

781
00:45:00,560 --> 00:45:04,680
Speaker 2: So this creates a perfect environment for something like reality

782
00:45:04,760 --> 00:45:07,759
Speaker 2: TV because of how cheap it is, because you can

783
00:45:07,800 --> 00:45:12,120
Speaker 2: avoid union labor and all of those things. The other

784
00:45:12,280 --> 00:45:16,200
Speaker 2: factor is the rise of tabloid culture at this time.

785
00:45:16,760 --> 00:45:20,080
Speaker 2: So you know, there were always tabloid magazines. You know,

786
00:45:20,080 --> 00:45:22,960
Speaker 2: when I was a kid, my grandmother loved the inquirer

787
00:45:23,160 --> 00:45:25,560
Speaker 2: and she I think she called them the scandal sheets,

788
00:45:26,040 --> 00:45:29,239
Speaker 2: which is such a great, such a great term, but

789
00:45:30,200 --> 00:45:34,440
Speaker 2: they really take off, and as a society we get

790
00:45:34,560 --> 00:45:40,000
Speaker 2: very interested in seeing celebrities caught unawares, and as a result,

791
00:45:40,560 --> 00:45:44,640
Speaker 2: you have these individuals who we called it at the time,

792
00:45:44,640 --> 00:45:47,520
Speaker 2: I think we called them like celebutants, people who were

793
00:45:47,560 --> 00:45:50,800
Speaker 2: famous for being famous. This was an outrageous idea to

794
00:45:50,880 --> 00:45:53,279
Speaker 2: people at the time. They just couldn't believe it. So

795
00:45:53,400 --> 00:45:59,319
Speaker 2: paris Hilton, Kim Gardashian, people who didn't do anything. They

796
00:45:59,360 --> 00:46:02,399
Speaker 2: just kind of insisted as pretty rich girls who go

797
00:46:02,440 --> 00:46:02,960
Speaker 2: and party.

798
00:46:04,320 --> 00:46:07,600
Speaker 1: And this is where Reality TV History meets a young

799
00:46:07,680 --> 00:46:10,480
Speaker 1: Tyra Banks, who had an idea to cash in on

800
00:46:10,520 --> 00:46:14,279
Speaker 1: this newly evolved genre. And we just spent ten episodes

801
00:46:14,320 --> 00:46:19,320
Speaker 1: talking about how that went. After the break, we're revisiting

802
00:46:19,360 --> 00:46:22,799
Speaker 1: A and TM's worst tropes and their dark history, and

803
00:46:22,840 --> 00:46:36,520
Speaker 1: then I'll be signing off for real this time. Back

804
00:46:36,560 --> 00:46:40,320
Speaker 1: in episode seven, we explored the angry black woman trope.

805
00:46:40,680 --> 00:46:43,360
Speaker 1: A and TM had a pattern of casting and editing

806
00:46:43,400 --> 00:46:49,160
Speaker 1: contestants to fit the stereotype that black women are loud, mean, bitter, confrontational,

807
00:46:49,239 --> 00:46:51,640
Speaker 1: belligerent divas.

808
00:46:53,520 --> 00:46:54,960
Speaker 4: And we didn't get kicked off for hinting.

809
00:46:55,040 --> 00:46:56,799
Speaker 1: Somebody yn't ask me toe up right now?

810
00:46:56,960 --> 00:46:57,440
Speaker 2: Shut up?

811
00:46:57,680 --> 00:46:59,200
Speaker 7: Did she not come up to me and say that.

812
00:47:00,840 --> 00:47:13,680
Speaker 1: Honest competition no matter what any girl say. But A

813
00:47:13,880 --> 00:47:16,960
Speaker 1: N T M didn't invent the A b W trope,

814
00:47:17,360 --> 00:47:27,160
Speaker 1: They just did it really well. The trope has history.

815
00:47:28,400 --> 00:47:31,560
Speaker 1: There was a radio sitcom called Amos and Andy that

816
00:47:31,719 --> 00:47:34,640
Speaker 1: ran from the twenties until the early nineteen sixties. It

817
00:47:34,719 --> 00:47:38,680
Speaker 1: was also briefly on television. The characters Amos and Andy

818
00:47:38,800 --> 00:47:41,640
Speaker 1: were two black men who moved up north from down

819
00:47:41,719 --> 00:47:45,080
Speaker 1: South for a better life. On the radio program, the

820
00:47:45,120 --> 00:47:48,480
Speaker 1: two men who voiced Amos and Andy were white. They

821
00:47:48,600 --> 00:47:52,200
Speaker 1: used offensive accents that were supposed to mock black dialect.

822
00:47:52,960 --> 00:47:59,719
Speaker 1: The show was extremely racist and extremely popular. There was

823
00:47:59,800 --> 00:48:03,200
Speaker 1: one one central woman on the show. Her name was Sapphire.

824
00:48:04,040 --> 00:48:07,720
Speaker 1: The character was voiced by an actual black woman, Ernestine Wade,

825
00:48:08,080 --> 00:48:10,960
Speaker 1: but it was still a demeaning caricature of black women.

826
00:48:11,760 --> 00:48:17,480
Speaker 1: Sapphire didn't have any redeeming qualities. She was always loud, rude, overbearing,

827
00:48:17,560 --> 00:48:18,200
Speaker 1: and angry.

828
00:48:18,880 --> 00:48:20,239
Speaker 2: You are the laziest no one.

829
00:48:20,280 --> 00:48:21,560
Speaker 4: You ain't never supported me.

830
00:48:21,600 --> 00:48:24,320
Speaker 8: In twenty two years. You ain't got no ambition.

831
00:48:24,480 --> 00:48:26,720
Speaker 13: You are the weakest, most finalss cat.

832
00:48:26,719 --> 00:48:28,799
Speaker 2: I'm never miss and you ain't never done.

833
00:48:28,880 --> 00:48:31,440
Speaker 12: Nothing can make a home for me, and I'm.

834
00:48:31,280 --> 00:48:37,719
Speaker 1: Leaving you sound familiar. When Amazon Andy was on air,

835
00:48:38,000 --> 00:48:40,880
Speaker 1: there were very few roles for black people in Hollywood.

836
00:48:41,320 --> 00:48:44,879
Speaker 1: This actress, Ernestine Wade, was actually a theater trained for

837
00:48:44,880 --> 00:48:48,600
Speaker 1: former singer and musician, but she was relegated to one

838
00:48:48,680 --> 00:48:55,160
Speaker 1: no roles Like Sapphire. The Sapphire character confirmed widely held

839
00:48:55,320 --> 00:48:58,239
Speaker 1: racist beliefs at the time about black women, and that

840
00:48:58,400 --> 00:49:02,239
Speaker 1: trope took root in America entertainment. I could do an

841
00:49:02,360 --> 00:49:05,840
Speaker 1: entire podcast just on the variations and evolutions of Sapphire

842
00:49:05,960 --> 00:49:11,440
Speaker 1: and media. The Sapphire character never died, she just became

843
00:49:11,719 --> 00:49:18,400
Speaker 1: the angry black woman. Okay, y'all still with me. Let's

844
00:49:18,400 --> 00:49:21,800
Speaker 1: take a trip to a more recent history, a time

845
00:49:21,880 --> 00:49:24,920
Speaker 1: when most of us were alive. Although we may wish

846
00:49:24,960 --> 00:49:28,000
Speaker 1: we didn't have to live through this, I'm talking about

847
00:49:28,080 --> 00:49:32,320
Speaker 1: the early two thousands, a period of rampant body shaming.

848
00:49:33,239 --> 00:49:36,640
Speaker 1: Antim is in the pantheon of body shaming offenders from

849
00:49:36,640 --> 00:49:39,600
Speaker 1: this era, and I want to give y'all some context

850
00:49:39,800 --> 00:49:43,879
Speaker 1: about the two thousands culture that birthed top model. Jess

851
00:49:43,880 --> 00:49:46,680
Speaker 1: Sims is a health writer and she remembers just how

852
00:49:46,719 --> 00:49:49,000
Speaker 1: brutal the aughts were on women's bodies.

853
00:49:49,280 --> 00:49:51,680
Speaker 8: America's next top model is such a tip of the

854
00:49:51,680 --> 00:49:54,800
Speaker 8: iceberg in terms of what we're looking at we had,

855
00:49:54,880 --> 00:49:57,880
Speaker 8: I always say A really good example was the treatment

856
00:49:57,960 --> 00:50:01,640
Speaker 8: of Renees Elweger was in Bridget jones Diary.

857
00:50:02,280 --> 00:50:05,160
Speaker 1: The movie Bridget Jones's Diary came out in two thousand

858
00:50:05,200 --> 00:50:09,040
Speaker 1: and one and it took America by storm. The entire

859
00:50:09,120 --> 00:50:12,239
Speaker 1: premise was that Bridget Jones was fat, from beat and

860
00:50:12,280 --> 00:50:15,200
Speaker 1: looking for love. But Bridget Jones was no more than

861
00:50:15,239 --> 00:50:18,719
Speaker 1: a size ten and weighed one hundred and thirty six pounds.

862
00:50:19,120 --> 00:50:21,880
Speaker 1: Renee Zelwicker put on weight for the role and lost

863
00:50:21,920 --> 00:50:25,600
Speaker 1: it afterwards. For years, she says, strangers would come up

864
00:50:25,600 --> 00:50:27,200
Speaker 1: to her on the street and ask.

865
00:50:27,600 --> 00:50:29,640
Speaker 13: How did you lose that weight?

866
00:50:30,280 --> 00:50:33,560
Speaker 1: She refused to answer the question. Here's writer Jess Simms

867
00:50:33,640 --> 00:50:34,879
Speaker 1: again in.

868
00:50:34,840 --> 00:50:37,440
Speaker 8: The early two thousands, No matter what your body looked like,

869
00:50:37,520 --> 00:50:40,640
Speaker 8: it was a problem. We also have Jessica Simpson.

870
00:50:41,719 --> 00:50:43,880
Speaker 1: In two thousand and nine, there was a photo of

871
00:50:43,960 --> 00:50:47,200
Speaker 1: popstar Jessica Simpson on stage at a concert.

872
00:50:47,320 --> 00:50:49,680
Speaker 8: She's wearing these high waisted denim jeans and a leopard

873
00:50:49,719 --> 00:50:55,200
Speaker 8: print belt, and it was on the news cycle for

874
00:50:55,400 --> 00:50:56,720
Speaker 8: a good two or three weeks.

875
00:50:58,440 --> 00:51:02,920
Speaker 1: The photo went early to thousands viral, not because Jessica

876
00:51:02,960 --> 00:51:06,279
Speaker 1: Simpson was doing anything in it, but because she had

877
00:51:06,320 --> 00:51:11,160
Speaker 1: gained some weight. Jessica Simpson rose to fame in the

878
00:51:11,239 --> 00:51:14,520
Speaker 1: late nineties when she was a literal teenager and because

879
00:51:14,520 --> 00:51:16,600
Speaker 1: she had the nerve to be bigger than she was

880
00:51:16,640 --> 00:51:19,440
Speaker 1: when she was seventeen. She found her picture on the

881
00:51:19,480 --> 00:51:22,560
Speaker 1: cover of all the tabloids and the subject of a

882
00:51:22,600 --> 00:51:29,279
Speaker 1: lot of blog posts, blogs like Perez Hilton's. His name

883
00:51:29,480 --> 00:51:32,520
Speaker 1: kept coming up while I was interviewing people for this podcast,

884
00:51:32,920 --> 00:51:35,880
Speaker 1: and I'm glad I decided to interview him myself because

885
00:51:35,920 --> 00:51:39,680
Speaker 1: it was illuminating. I have some more clips from our

886
00:51:39,800 --> 00:51:42,399
Speaker 1: interview I'll share in a minute, but first, here's what

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00:51:42,520 --> 00:51:45,400
Speaker 1: jess had to say about Perez's role in that body

888
00:51:45,400 --> 00:51:46,080
Speaker 1: shaming era.

889
00:51:46,960 --> 00:51:50,799
Speaker 8: We saw people who got famous off of being cruel

890
00:51:50,840 --> 00:51:53,839
Speaker 8: to fat people. I always talk about Perez Hilton, who

891
00:51:54,160 --> 00:51:57,919
Speaker 8: tried to turn a new lead, which I always find

892
00:51:57,920 --> 00:52:01,120
Speaker 8: to be very bizarre because he was disgusting, cruel to

893
00:52:01,280 --> 00:52:04,080
Speaker 8: all women. He's such a good example of how gay

894
00:52:04,080 --> 00:52:09,120
Speaker 8: men can be so misogynistic. Beyond his calls for Britney

895
00:52:09,120 --> 00:52:13,080
Speaker 8: Spears to hurt herself, which he was very open about

896
00:52:13,120 --> 00:52:16,759
Speaker 8: and was very persistent, his coverage of women's bodies. It

897
00:52:16,840 --> 00:52:20,239
Speaker 8: was a really good example of how the media were

898
00:52:20,239 --> 00:52:24,360
Speaker 8: able to make money off of discussing women's bodies. And

899
00:52:24,360 --> 00:52:27,560
Speaker 8: these weren't people who were journalists who not a journalistic

900
00:52:27,760 --> 00:52:28,520
Speaker 8: code of ethics.

901
00:52:29,840 --> 00:52:34,280
Speaker 1: Writer Michelle Konstantinovsky also had thoughts about Perez of impact

902
00:52:34,360 --> 00:52:36,879
Speaker 1: and the climate of the early two thousands.

903
00:52:36,640 --> 00:52:39,720
Speaker 14: Tabloid culture was beyond out of control at that point.

904
00:52:39,800 --> 00:52:43,520
Speaker 14: We all remember, you know, Lindsay Lohan and Parashltan and

905
00:52:43,840 --> 00:52:47,040
Speaker 14: Nicole Ritchie either being celebrated or torn apart depending on

906
00:52:47,080 --> 00:52:50,879
Speaker 14: the day. You know, in the Perez Hilton of it all,

907
00:52:50,960 --> 00:52:54,479
Speaker 14: all of the bloggers who felt very comfortable not only

908
00:52:54,520 --> 00:52:57,799
Speaker 14: displaying women's bodies but literally circling parts of them and

909
00:52:57,840 --> 00:53:00,520
Speaker 14: magnifying them and saying what was wrong with them? But

910
00:53:00,600 --> 00:53:03,680
Speaker 14: the Perez Hilton culture just kept doubling down, doubling down

911
00:53:03,680 --> 00:53:07,960
Speaker 14: on how it's not only acceptable to dissect and almost

912
00:53:08,000 --> 00:53:12,320
Speaker 14: like take glee in mocking women's bodies.

913
00:53:11,880 --> 00:53:16,080
Speaker 1: But it's expected. That's what we do as a culture.

914
00:53:16,760 --> 00:53:19,759
Speaker 1: Perez was one of the absolute worst when it came

915
00:53:19,800 --> 00:53:23,080
Speaker 1: to body shaming. This is the man who said one

916
00:53:23,120 --> 00:53:28,080
Speaker 1: of Bruce Willis's daughters was a fugly child. He described

917
00:53:28,120 --> 00:53:32,360
Speaker 1: the OC's Misha Barton's thighs as being mar faalicious, and

918
00:53:32,440 --> 00:53:37,360
Speaker 1: he once called Britney Spears fat Elvis in a headline

919
00:53:37,680 --> 00:53:41,560
Speaker 1: no one was off limits. These days, though, Perez is

920
00:53:41,560 --> 00:53:44,520
Speaker 1: singing a slightly different tune. He's been on a bit

921
00:53:44,560 --> 00:53:48,080
Speaker 1: of an apology tour. When I interviewed him, I had

922
00:53:48,200 --> 00:53:51,280
Speaker 1: prepared some hard hitting questions about the damage he caused

923
00:53:51,320 --> 00:53:53,520
Speaker 1: with his post, but he came out swinging.

924
00:53:54,040 --> 00:53:57,120
Speaker 3: I take full accountability for everything I did. I can't

925
00:53:57,160 --> 00:54:01,880
Speaker 3: blame ignorance, and I can't blame you youth. I was

926
00:54:01,880 --> 00:54:06,440
Speaker 3: in my late twenties and I was so selfish. I

927
00:54:06,560 --> 00:54:11,920
Speaker 3: was incredibly selfish. I knew at the time that what

928
00:54:12,000 --> 00:54:15,920
Speaker 3: I was doing was wrong, and I didn't care. I

929
00:54:16,000 --> 00:54:19,760
Speaker 3: was selfish. I cared about me. I cared about the clicks,

930
00:54:20,200 --> 00:54:24,680
Speaker 3: the page view. I was purposefully trying to be shocking

931
00:54:24,800 --> 00:54:29,120
Speaker 3: because that worked. It got attention, it got me views,

932
00:54:29,200 --> 00:54:33,160
Speaker 3: and it got me success. I was horrible and I

933
00:54:33,239 --> 00:54:34,480
Speaker 3: was rewarded for it.

934
00:54:35,440 --> 00:54:39,040
Speaker 1: Whether or not this Maya Kulpa is genuine. Perez knows

935
00:54:39,040 --> 00:54:42,400
Speaker 1: what to say, and that's strikingly different than what we

936
00:54:42,480 --> 00:54:44,320
Speaker 1: hear from say Tyra Banks.

937
00:54:45,239 --> 00:54:50,440
Speaker 3: Attention is a very powerful drug, and I was an

938
00:54:50,480 --> 00:54:52,440
Speaker 3: attention addict.

939
00:54:54,200 --> 00:54:57,440
Speaker 1: Perez might have changed his ways, but the thing is,

940
00:54:58,000 --> 00:55:03,600
Speaker 1: today there are millions of ress. When reality TV started

941
00:55:03,640 --> 00:55:06,840
Speaker 1: eighty years ago, it was openly deemed a social and

942
00:55:06,880 --> 00:55:11,719
Speaker 1: psychological experiment. Then it became normal, and today we're in

943
00:55:11,719 --> 00:55:15,319
Speaker 1: the middle of a new psychological experiment, one that's hard

944
00:55:15,320 --> 00:55:18,200
Speaker 1: to opt out of. Amanda clin again.

945
00:55:18,880 --> 00:55:23,920
Speaker 2: It feels like, right now everything is reality TV because

946
00:55:24,040 --> 00:55:26,560
Speaker 2: you know, first of all, of course social media, you

947
00:55:26,600 --> 00:55:29,960
Speaker 2: can hate follow people online and come on, we all

948
00:55:30,000 --> 00:55:32,560
Speaker 2: do it because they're drama and they put all their

949
00:55:32,640 --> 00:55:35,120
Speaker 2: mess out there and you're like, oh, what's messy up

950
00:55:35,120 --> 00:55:38,400
Speaker 2: to today? So like, that's your personal reality show.

951
00:55:38,719 --> 00:55:41,520
Speaker 1: And we're all the main character in our own story.

952
00:55:41,960 --> 00:55:45,360
Speaker 1: Amanda thinks it's changing the way we approach our daily lives.

953
00:55:46,000 --> 00:55:48,920
Speaker 2: You see something happening, you pull your phone out, not

954
00:55:49,040 --> 00:55:52,560
Speaker 2: because you want to remember it later, it's because you're like, ooh, context,

955
00:55:53,440 --> 00:55:55,600
Speaker 2: I don't have a big social media following, but even

956
00:55:55,760 --> 00:55:58,440
Speaker 2: I'm like, ooh, this is so interesting. Let me get this.

957
00:55:59,120 --> 00:56:03,600
Speaker 2: We're all reality TV producers. We're all curating the world

958
00:56:03,640 --> 00:56:05,799
Speaker 2: for other people, and I don't think that's a good

959
00:56:05,800 --> 00:56:09,120
Speaker 2: thing because I think that's changing the way we view

960
00:56:09,160 --> 00:56:12,560
Speaker 2: each other. We are viewing other people as content, so

961
00:56:12,719 --> 00:56:14,160
Speaker 2: we're more prone to of you each other, I think

962
00:56:14,200 --> 00:56:15,080
Speaker 2: as characters.

963
00:56:15,160 --> 00:56:22,240
Speaker 1: Now, reality TV started this phenomenon of wanting to watch

964
00:56:22,400 --> 00:56:27,240
Speaker 1: real people in ridiculous situations and everyday dramas, and now,

965
00:56:27,480 --> 00:56:30,200
Speaker 1: in a way, we are all on a reality show,

966
00:56:30,520 --> 00:56:35,560
Speaker 1: whether we want to be or not. That's all for

967
00:56:35,640 --> 00:56:39,600
Speaker 1: this very special bonus episode. Thanks for listening to the

968
00:56:39,640 --> 00:56:44,279
Speaker 1: Curse of America's Next Top Model. Someone once told me,

969
00:56:44,520 --> 00:56:47,440
Speaker 1: in this business, the only reward you get is to

970
00:56:47,480 --> 00:56:49,719
Speaker 1: get to do it again. And my team and I

971
00:56:49,920 --> 00:56:53,640
Speaker 1: worked really hard. So if you want another season or

972
00:56:53,760 --> 00:56:56,799
Speaker 1: more episodes, the best way to let us know is

973
00:56:56,840 --> 00:56:59,960
Speaker 1: by leaving a five star rating and a glowing review.

974
00:57:01,360 --> 00:57:06,200
Speaker 1: All right, brow the credits one last time. The Curse

975
00:57:06,239 --> 00:57:09,440
Speaker 1: of America's Next Top Model is a production of Glass Podcast,

976
00:57:09,800 --> 00:57:13,680
Speaker 1: a division of Glass Entertainment Group in partnership with iHeart Podcast.

977
00:57:14,360 --> 00:57:17,680
Speaker 1: The show is executive produced by Nancy Glass, hosted and

978
00:57:17,720 --> 00:57:21,120
Speaker 1: senior produced by me Bridget Armstrong. Our story editor is

979
00:57:21,160 --> 00:57:24,880
Speaker 1: Monique Leboard, also produced by Ben Fetterman and Andrea Gunning.

980
00:57:25,280 --> 00:57:29,400
Speaker 1: Associate producers are Alisha Key, Kristin Melciriy, and Curry Richmond.

981
00:57:30,160 --> 00:57:33,600
Speaker 1: Consulting producers on this podcast are Oliver TwixT and Kate Taylor.

982
00:57:34,000 --> 00:57:37,880
Speaker 1: Our iHeart team is Ali Perry and Jessica Criincheck. Audio

983
00:57:38,000 --> 00:57:40,920
Speaker 1: editing and mixing on this episode by Matt del Vecchio

984
00:57:41,080 --> 00:57:44,360
Speaker 1: and Dean Welsh. The Curse of America's Next Top Model

985
00:57:44,400 --> 00:57:48,240
Speaker 1: theme was composed by Oliver Bains. Music library provided by

986
00:57:48,240 --> 00:57:52,320
Speaker 1: myb Music. Special thanks to everyone we interviewed, especially the

987
00:57:52,360 --> 00:57:56,120
Speaker 1: former contestants, and for more podcasts from iHeart, visit the

988
00:57:56,160 --> 00:57:59,880
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.

989
00:58:00,480 --> 00:58:03,480
Speaker 1: Also check out the Etglass Podcast Instagram for Curse of

990
00:58:03,560 --> 00:58:05,960
Speaker 1: America's Next Top Model behind the scenes content.