Television continues to eat itself in new and more meta ways.
Gogglebox makes stars of the “everyday Australians” who are filmed reacting to TV every week – reaching peak navel-gaze in 2019 when Channel 10 plucked Angie Kent off the sofa and cast her as The Bachelorette.
On YouTube you can watch Whitney Port, who was cast as Lauren Conrad’s work friend on mid-2000s docudrama The Hills, react to every episode of the show with her husband, who was a producer on Port’s spin-off, The City.
The galaxy of reality TV recap podcasts seems to add new stars each week and, catching on to their power and popularity, Bravo’s chat show Watch What Happens Live regularly invites Bravo podcasters on to serve as guest commentators on Bravo drama.
It’s an ouroboros of one liners, shady remarks, genuinely insightful commentary and behind-the-scenes gossip. It’s also completely, inexplicably gripping to watch people watch TV, regardless of how much you actually enjoy the show at the centre of the circle.
In his mini-series For Real: The Story of Reality TV, streaming in Australia on Hayu, Watch What Happens Live host Andy Cohen attempts to do more than just recap and react, instead casting himself as a kind of reality television sociologist.
For those uninitiated, Cohen is ostensibly the face of Bravo, the US cable network responsible for some of the world’s most successful reality franchises. He’s been at the network for almost two decades, serving as its vice president of original programming and more recently executive vice president of development and talent. In other words, it’s Andy Cohen I have to thank for the Real Housewives franchise and its spin-offs like Vanderpump Rules and Summer House; in other words, he is the source of the only true moments of joy I’ve experienced since February 2020.
For Real is designed to tap into the pleasure centres of those who didn’t need that previous paragraph explaining who Andy Cohen is – and, crucially, those who did.
It casts its net wide, and catches us up on not just the history of reality TV, but the contexts that its sub-genres, trends and specific shows existed within. Cohen asks what the world of makeover shows (remember The Swan?) did to beauty trends and the self-esteem of both viewers and contestants; paints the landscape of competition shows (Top Chef, Survivor, America’s Next Top Model); and looks at the real-life romantic potential of dating shows like The Bachelor and 90 Day Fiancé.
Cohen’s essay-like approach on For Real captures interviews in person and virtually (the show was entirely produced during the pandemic), with guests including Kim Kardashian West (Keeping up With the Kardashians is classified under the banner of “celeb-reality”, along with shows like Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey’s Newlyweds and The Anna Nicole Show). Kardashian West mentions how pivotal the inaugural season of The Real World was for her desire to be seen, be photographed, be a reality TV star. When the original cast of The Real World reunites in Cohen’s studio, he sheds a tear, demonstrating that the kinship viewers felt with Norman, Julie, Heather and Eric extended well beyond the bedrooms of Calabasas teens in the 90s who went on to define the genre – and all of celebrity.
Cohen brings plenty of heart to his hosting duties. He is, at his core, a fan just like the rest of us – but occasionally that infatuation with the genre and its stars makes his analysis of its effects a little shallow. It has to be: For Real aired on E!, the network that was home to KUWTK for 14 years and 20 seasons, and which broadcast the Anna Nicole Smith Show. His investigation into what reality TV does to the people at its centre can only dig so deep.
But For Real digs in in other ways. The real world is always looming at the edges of constructed “reality”, and in one episode Cohen invites a panel of black women behind these shows to speak about their experiences in the genre. It emphasises how inextricable the contributions of black women and black producers are and always have been to the success of reality TV.
The actor Vivica A. Fox appears on that panel, and talks about being cast on Celebrity Apprentice in 2015. If youthink that reality TV doesn’t matter, remember: the host of that show became the president of the United States the following year. Dedicating a few hours to For Real in an effort to understand the environment that got him there isn’t an insignificant mission, for Cohen or for us.
For Real: the Story of Reality TV is streaming in Australia on Hayu
