Rating Reality

November 1, 2001

Rating reality

By Catherine Riddell
ceriddel@uwo.ca

While a munch on tall grass, mistaken for beef jerky, may have contributed to Kel Gleason being ousted from the outback on the second Survivor series, something different tickles his taste buds today: salmon fillets sprinkled with paprika, chilled carrot soup and a mild red curry. At home in Toronto, he prepares a dinner party for six, covering his pots and pans long enough to explain by telephone life post-Survivor and why he thinks reality TV has made it so big.

According to Kerry Kielar, communications specialist at Nielsen Media Research in New York, the current series, Survivor: Africa, is the seventh most popular show in the US this season with an average of 21.8 million viewers per week. While CBS holds the reins in the reality TV market with Survivor, The Amazing Race and Big Brother, other networks have followed suit with shows like Love Cruise (Fox), Temptation Island (Fox) and Fear Factor (NBC). Canada's own upcoming reality television show, Quest for the Bay, which will retrace the 1840s fur trade route to Hudson Bay, will air on the History Channel sometime next year.

Survivor's ratings have slipped a bit from previous seasons, but millions still tune in to watch the 16 castaways each week.

Kel Gleason

Photo by Richard Freedman

Kel Gleason, a castaway from Survivor: The Australian Outback, says reality TV is here to stay.

Gleason was one of those castaways last season. Born in Murphysboro, Ill., Gleason was a Canadian favourite because he spent part of his childhood in Fredericton, N.B. He left Canada to work for the US military in 1996, but returned to Canada this year to work as the weekly Survivor entertainment reporter on Global News. As a former survivor, he has his own insights into why people are watching reality TV.

"I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that people like people-watching," says Gleason. "One of our pastimes, even if we don't like to admit it, is that we like to talk about other people, we like to gossip about other people, and it's really easy to talk about somebody that's on a reality TV show, like 'Can you believe what happened on that show last night?' "

Gleason was voted off Survivor: The Australian Outback in its second episode, when some of the other contestants suspected he had a secret stash of beef jerky. Even though he was there for only a short time, the experience has changed the way he thinks about society.

"People see you on TV and they feel like they know you - they make immediate decisions about whether they like you or not based on what they see on TV." He believes viewers' fascination with the casts of reality television shows is what will sustain the genre. "It's definitely going to be around for a while. It's part of TV culture now."

Tim Blackmore, a popular culture expert at the University of Western Ontario, agrees that reality television may stick around, but he doesn't think it will have as much of a following in years to come "because it won't be as new." Like Gleason, he sees conflict as the main draw for the millions who watch shows like Survivor each week.

"It's about becoming more voyeurs than we ever have been. It's about taking part in a voyeuristic culture where we want to witness other people, and I think we want to witness them having trouble and distress. I think the idea is for it not to go well, but for things to go badly," says Blackmore.

It's a "love of looking" that he says keeps viewers glued to their sets, not the idea of being "involved". Although Blackmore believes reality TV makes viewers feel like they are involved, in the end, he says, "we like to walk away and say, "OK, what a bunch of losers. I wouldn't do that.' "

"Isn't it crazy what people will do for money?" he adds.

Blackmore believes the networks are choosing people for reality TV shows who "are in little ways insane." Reality television, he says, is not real at all. "It's real in the sense that real people are getting hurt, and I think, I expect, these people have massive egos and so on, but I won't be surprised, if you follow up on these people, that bad things have happened to them." He argues that being a little insane is the only way people can put themselves into other characters so deeply that they can become the characters repeatedly throughout the day.

Gleason has heard critics of reality television before. "People like to dis' reality TV, but I laugh at them because reality TV has always been around, from news documentaries to sports shows. There's no acting in those shows, and they are still around because there is an audience for them."

He reflects on his time in the outback lightheartedly. "All I did was play The Price is Right in a weird place with a bunch of weirdos. That's what it is, let's get real: 16 weirdos, put in a weird place, they play weird games and they vote each other off. They don't do anything special; they just play a game."

As a graduate from the radio and television communications program at Southern Illinois University, Gleason has worked as an assistant producer and scriptwriter for CBC and describes himself in terms of his Canadian entertainment background. He's no stranger to television production, and says Survivor is real, and has opened a lot of doors for him.

"I've got two reality TV shows in the works that I'm putting together. I can't say anything about them because I've signed a contract, but I'm going to have a Canadian cast and a Canadian production company." He thinks it's about time more Canadians become involved in what he calls "a winning genre."

For Gleason, the genre turned a life in the military into a life in the spotlight. "Life in the military is a very solitary life - you are married to it." Now, Gleason finds himself reading fan mail. "I always get a hoot out of marriage proposals," he says.

Although scholars and survivors may not agree on some aspects of reality television, ratings don't lie: Survivor: Africa holds its position among the top 10 rated shows in the US.

Have the events of Sept. 11 had an effect on reality TV? Gleason doesn't think so. "Good reality TV is a soap opera," he says. "It has nothing to do with the world events going on around it."

Whether or not Survivor: The Australian Outback was the main course in Gleason's career, he foresees the next will include more radio and television ventures. "I'd like to either produce or direct my own shows. I want to act and utilize my radio and TV background," he says. "That's where I see myself in five or 10 years."

As for the dinner party? "The salmon is done, the curry is done, and the carrot soup is now done. I'm now going to put this aside. Dessert is ... I think I'll make strawberry shortcake."