CAST 304 - Reality TV

FC ARHU CD

4 credits
What happens when TV stops being polite and starts getting real? This is a class about the kinds of televisual spectacles that we love to hate-watch. Our goal will be to interrogate this conflicted fixation through dating shows, docusoaps, social experiments, survival competitions, makeover shows, historical reenactments, and artworks that remediate such programs. Drawing on media studies and cultural studies scholarship, we will explore how shows like Survivor, Real Housewives, and Queer Eye can hold a mirror up to American society, as well as provide fodder for utopian fantasies about the radical reconfiguration of the status quo.