Media critic urges Richmond audience to challenge reality TV narratives

Media critic Jennifer Pozner told an audience Monday night to avoid mindless engagement when watching reality TV, which has functioned as backlash against women's rights, she said.

Her talk, "Project Brainwash: Why Reality TV is Bad for Women," held in the Tyler Haynes Commons, was the first of three in the 2012-2013 speaker series sponsored by WILL and Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies. Pozner is the founder of Women in Media & News (WIMN), an organization that analyzes representation of women in the media.

Television editing and production tricks frame women as not only having no choices, but not wanting any, Pozner said. She also addressed issues such as love and marriage, eating disorders, wealth and race.

Her presentation included clips and analysis from popular reality shows, including "The Bachelor," "America's Next Top Model," "American Idol" and "Flavor Flav." Her opening clip featured a woman on "The Bachelor" saying she would be a servant to the bachelor if they were to get married.

Pozner then debunked the myth that reality shows were "giving us what we want." She said that the main purpose of TV programming was to make profits and that media economics means advertisers write their products directly into the plots and scenery. Reality TV shows can also sustain a lower rating and still stay on air, Pozner said.

"Reality TV was created to meet advertisers' needs," she said. "This is especially detrimental to women. The ideology of advertising is woven directly into content."

Audience members gasped during a clip from the ABC show "Are You Hot," where judges used a "flaw finder" to point out supposed imperfections of women on stage.

Shows like "Are You Hot" frame life for women as an unrelenting, unwinnable beauty contest, Pozner said. She also addressed the cultural framing of black women as violent and angry and of Asian women as hypersexual and passive.

"I had already realized a lot of the points she made, but didn't pick up on how heavily the messages appeared," audience member Jazmine Gooding said. "That's probably because I watched a lot of these shows when I was younger."

Pozner said there was a double standard for women and men on reality TV. She showed clips from "American Idol" of Simon Cowell continually berating female contestants about their weights and appearances, yet judging male contestants solely on their voices.

Pozner analyzed how reality TV producers and advertisers perpetuate limiting, hyper-traditional notions of who men and women are supposed to be. She discussed the common "fairytale" narrative in shows such as "The Bachelor" and "Joe Millionaire."

"Women are portrayed as helpless damsels and men as strong providers," she said. "Men must have only two things: a firm butt and firm financial portfolio."

There are certain editorial processes, such as the use of "Frankenbytes," or random bits of conversation, and voice equalization software that produce scenes that never actually happened, Pozner said. These scenes portray women as golddiggers and stupid, she said, and their happiness is portrayed as contingent upon male approval.

"Women's humiliation is the money shot," she said.

The shows are damaging because they attempt to reverse the clocks to the 1950s when women's own sense of power was seen through beauty and marital status, Pozner said.

Holly Blake, director of WILL, said the talk was valuable because it helped the audience become more critical media consumers.

Pozner has appeared as a commentator on shows including "The O'Reilly Factor" and "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart." She was formerly a staff writer for Extra! magazine, and her freelance work on women, media, politics and pop culture has appeared in Newsday and the Chicago Tribune. Pozner founded WIMN in 2001 to increase women's presence and power in the public debate through media analysis, education, advocacy and reform.

Contact collegian reporter Jenna Robinson at jenna.robinson@richmond.edu