Has Celebrity Gone to Jon's Head?

Millions of people tune in to Jon & Kate Plus 8 every Monday. In fact, 4.6 million tuned in to watch the series' season 4 finale: the finale that announced the possibility of no fifth season...ever.
Since Star magazine published an article about Jon's alleged night out in which he partied "the night away with a bevy of college cuties," speculation and disbelief have run rampant.

In the show's four seasons, Jon has never once alluded to any sort of dissatisfaction. In fact, he always seems to be cheerful, even when he is being hen-pecked by Kate. During some of the "All You Wanted to Know" specials, viewers even e-mail in to ask for advice about parenting.
True, Jon has used his celebrity in the past for aesthetic gains. In March 2008, Jon received a hair transplant to fix his premature balding.

But is a man's desire for hair proof of discontent?
Jon's alleged night out with co-eds may not be true (in fact, other than a couple of college girls, there is nothing to back up the story- especially no pictures), but it has certainly taken a toll on his life (and the show). In fact, in an article in EW , readers learned that the show was taped just as accusations of Jon's exploits surfaced.

Does "Reality Sanity" Have a Four-Season Limit?

TLC's Jon & Kate Plus 8, which aired its 4th season finale on Monday, March 23rd, is one of TLC's most popular reality series. At the end of the finale, viewers were shocked to hear that Jon Gosselin was contemplating the possibility of not returning for a fifth season.
Gosselin, the father of eight who seems to be happy-go-lucky (even when there is pure chaos in the house and his wife, Kate, is nagging him), cited a lack of privacy for one of the reasons he has doubts about returning: "We don't have any privacy...it's tough."

It's true that since the first season of the show, the Gosselin family has become one of the most recognizable families and, to Jon's apparent dismay, celebrities. Also since the first season, Jon has been able to quit his job and work from home, and the family has been able to move into a $1.3 Million home. Kate has written two books, Multiple Blessings and Eight Little Faces. The family has also appeared on Fox News's morning show and The Oprah Winfrey Show.

In most reality shows, participants are only involved for one season, and then they either move back into the world from which they came or embrace their new-found celebrity. For Jon and Kate and their eight kids, having a film crew in their home has been a fact of life for four years. Maybe they've just met their Reality TV expiration date. Millions of fans certainly hope not.

Necessary? Or Just Insulting?

While watching The Biggest Loser last night, I finally took a stand against something that has been bugging me for years about reality television: the way producers blatantly insult our intelligence.

During the parting interview with Aubrey, the contestant sent home last night, I realized (like oh so many times before) that it was taken from the same interview in which Aubrey explained her pre-weigh-in anxieties as though she hadn't weighed in yet at all. One could brush it off as the producers' necessity to save time and prevent the hassle of multiple interviews, but why insult the intelligence of the viewer by pretending it hasn't happened?

This revisionist editing might not be so irritating if it weren't for the fact that five minutes in the show later we saw Aubrey returning home to a house full of people who greeted her as though they hadn't seen her in months when, in fact, she was home just the week before. In interviews with her family, her husband and sister commented on the "remarkable" change they had saw in Aubrey since the last time they had seen her. (You can watch the entire episode or just the elimination on nbc.com.)

But we, the keen-minded viewers, know the truth. Aubrey had only lost four pounds since they saw her last: the same four pounds that let her fall below the yellow line and be eliminated.
Perhaps these editing strategies wouldn't be so irritating if it weren't for the fact that most producers do the same thing (i.e. Hosea's "Bacon is a vegetable" shirt in EVERY interview during Top Chef: New York).

They may be tiny discrepancies, but shouldn't "reality" television be held to a higher standard?

Reality Television: A Misnomer?

In a world where nearly every move a celebrity makes (or a politician) is documented, both in print and in picture, it isn’t surprising that we are a nation obsessed with getting the real scoop.

At almost any given time during the day (or night), one can flip through the channels and find at least one reality show, whether it be Survivor on prime time or America’s Next Top Model re-runs on Oxygen, VH1, or UPN (and of course people watch, because the other option is the dozens of infomercials pervading nearly every channel).

When asking around campus, I found that nearly everyone watches reality television of some sort. Favorites ranged from the traditional Survivor and Amazing Race to TLC favorites such as Wife Swap and Super Nanny, all the way to VH1’s Flavor of Love and MTV’s The Real World.
What makes reality television so irresistible? The reality?

When asked about what makes Wife Swap so great, Jessica Staggs responded: “Because the people are so crazy! They pick out the most extreme people. Where else would you find an extremist Christian woman with four teeth living with a hippie commune?”
That explains why the show is so entertaining, but does it discount its classification as “reality”? The fact is that Wife Swap probably IS the only place you would find such a strange combination.

There are many new “dating devices” to be found today: E-Harmony, Match.com, and speed dating to name a few. It seems, though, that Americans can’t get enough of televised dating. The Bachelor and Flavor of Love are both highly popular, if not controversial shows about people trying to find “love.”

Do people watch these shows because they really do want to see people falling in love? Or is it the controversial fact that there are dozens of women are vying for the affections of one man? Is it then a game in which there can only be one winner?
“It’s just hilarious. I don’t have a legitimate reason to watch Flavor of Love. It just makes me feel good about myself,” Kate Sexton comments about her strange fascination with the show.
So is reality television really reality?

Kaitlin Gotch comments that she thinks “they’re incredibly staged…to the point that they’re not credible.”
Her sister, Kristin, agrees: “I would call it reality TV…with air quotes.”

The moral of the story: people may not buy into reality TV as reality, but they certainly watch it anyway.