Celebrity Big Brother, The X Factor and even Strictly Come Dancing. All have been accused by viewers of being ‘fixed’. So can we really believe reality television?
Usually, the most scandalous thing to happen on Strictly Come Dancing is a few rumours of dalliances between professionals and celebrities.
This year, however, things were slightly different. A ‘fix scandal’ embroiled the show after several of the celebrities and dancers spoke out about what they saw as being unfair scoring.
Jamelia alluded to the fact she thought producers wanted to keep Peter Andre on the show longer, while Ola Jordan said that she thought the judges were over-marking some contestants.
It led Len Goodman to have to answer questions about the allegations, saying during the show’s run: “I know sometimes I’ll give someone a seven and millions of people won’t agree with me, but it’s all about taste. I like Brussels sprouts, you don’t – it doesn’t make us right or wrong, it’s taste. And that’s how dancing is.”
He concluded: “I hope we can draw a line under this now because it’s such a fantastic series.”
Strictly is not the first, and won’t be the last, show to come up against such allegations. Pretty much all reality TV shows have had the ‘fix!’ cry waved at them by viewers over the years. I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here!, The X Factor, Britain’s Got Talent and The Apprentice have all been accused of having pre-determined outcomes by people angry at the thought of not everything they are seeing being real.
Just this week, Celebrity Big Brother has had to deal with the same accusations, with fans stating that this series of the programme has been ‘fixed’ for former The Only Way is Essex star Gemma Collins to win.
This is largely to do with the fact that Gemma has been in and out of the house like a yo-yo. She’s stormed out, stormed back in and then had to leave due to cutting herself when cooking.
But it was the fact that she was the first to get immunity during one of the tasks that made viewers question just how fair the show was, and whether producers were involved in trying to keep her in the house.
It’s hardly surprising that Channel 5 would want Gemma to stay in the house for as long as possible. She’s been the subject of many newspaper column inches in the past few weeks – her outrageous antics being written and talked about by many.
But what the producers will be doing when they cut together an episode of Celebrity Big Brother is looking for the best bits – the biggest shocks, the meatiest moments. If Gemma has decided to storm out or she needs to be escorted out after getting injured, that’s what they’re going to include in that evening’s episode.
And in turn, she gets more air time. This then means that more viewers see her antics, which turns into votes and she stays in the house longer. And then ‘fix’ accusations come flooding in.
Reality TV in this format is a relatively new phenomenon, and has only become such a big part of television in the past 15 years or so. But it was when shows like The Only Way is Essex and Made in Chelsea came along that people really started to question the authenticity of events, situations and bust-ups.
Although they state that they are reality TV programmes, some of these shows have disclaimers at the start that tell people not everything is as it seems.
For example, at the beginning of The Only Way is Essex, viewers are told that although the people are real “some of what they do has been set up purely for your entertainment”.
It’s a fluffy way of explaining that the so-called ‘reality’ is actually skewed; that we can’t take as read everything that we’re seeing.
It’s only in the past five years or so that these structured reality TV shows have become the norm. And their rise in popularity has meant that people have then turned their critical eye to the shows that are in fact presented wholly as fact.
By nature, the more a programme airs, the more cynicism creeps in. There was a naïve innocence to programmes like Pop Idol, and when Will Young infamously hit back at Simon Cowell on the show, with the eventual winner telling Cowell that some of his previous programmes had been “terrible to watch” because of his insulting attitude, it felt very, very real.
However, if a similar altercation were to happen on Britain’s Got Talent or The X Factor now, there would be plenty of viewers up in arms, declaring that the whole thing had been set up.
This is also down to changes in technology. When Will Young won Pop Idol in 2002, Twitter and Facebook didn’t exist – and the internet that we know today was still in its infancy.
It meant that if you had a grievance about a TV show, you had to take the time to write to Points of View or put it on a relatively unknown internet forum. Today, you can fire off an angry tweet shouting ‘fix’ in 140 characters in under a minute, and the whole world will see it.
So, while the way we react to these shows has changed, the shows themselves haven’t. That said, it’s unlikely that viewers will stop crying scandal at every turn anytime soon.
Disclaimer: This is entirely a personal opinion
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