Technology is supposed to help us find the truth through better research and faster reporting. Truth should lead to equality. Media reporting is running away from equality, the truth, and using technology purely for entertaining women in the demographic of 20 to 39.
We know reality television is not real. Reality television is just scripted entertainment with unpaid actors. MKR, the show named My Kitchen Rules, is about people attacking each other verbally. The kitchen part is a minor sideshow. The same with Married at First Sight, a show about friends and relatives abusing each other.
The newspaper reporting of the fake reality television adds another layer of disconnect. MaFS has women with children marrying men without children, hardly an equal start to a relationship. There is no requirement for disclosure and the newspaper reporting treats it as an acceptable lie. After several episodes, there is finally a man with children marrying a woman without children. The newspaper report treats the man as evil for not warning the woman first. This is clearly discrimination and vilification of men.
I do not watch MaFS because it is a stupid idea. A person hired by the producers attempts to match people based on an undisclosed range of applications. In the matchmaking industry, matchmakers report the number of female applicants as ten times more than the number of male applicants. Television survives based on advertising aimed at women. The show has to appeal to women which means following the rules of promoting deliberate inequality between men and women.
The newspaper reports are sometimes funny. Newspapers have to do the same thing, attract women in their 20s and 30s. Newspapers follow the same rules.
What are the rules?
Men are made to appear stupid and can be vilified by anyone. Women can only be vilified by women.
Two women have to feud. On one English television show, a woman was shown as the sweet princess who was constantly attacked by the evil witch woman. When the show went to air, the "wicked witch" sued for misrepresentation. Apparently, before the editing, the real life interaction was the sweet princess constantly attacking the "wicked witch". The editors cut out all the princess attacks and showed only the witch when the witch responded to the princess attacks.
The script writers create the script then edit the video to show whatever the script says. MaFS shows couples at their worst or best based on the producers, directors, and script writers deciding who will be the bad person. Any variation is based only on the camera people catching interesting footage that can be twisted into a misleading sound bite for the adverts.
The MaFS males appear to be mostly boring and harmless. Based on the current media articles, most of the men have a job with a steady income and most of the women do not, clearly an inequality. The men are frequently painted as evil for things like not having a serious job with a steady income. The women are not evil for being unemployed or having no income, in fact it is sometimes painted as just an interesting quirk and at other times as a desirable attribute.
If the producers wanted to present reality, they would place the MaFS applications online for everyone appearing in the show. This would give us a chance to compare what is written in the application with the actual person. The MaFS producers would present an analysis of all applicants so we can see the imbalance between the applicants and who is selected.
MaFS reality would include unedited video of the matchmaker interviewing the applicants plus unedited video of the matchmakers telling the applicants about the person they are matched with.
One MaFS episode had the friends/sisters of the bride chasing the man who had not mentioned a previous marriage with children. There was no equivalent vilification of the women with children who had married men without children. Given all the unlimited broadband, MaFS could stream the video of the setup process for that segment.
Did the director tell the friends/sisters about the marriage/children? Did staff feed lots of drinks to the friends/sisters? How did the producers manage to have video cameras conveniently catch the action if the segment was not carefully directed?
A MKR contestant said his bad cooking was given artificially high scores to keep him in the show for longer because he was painted as the villain. Reality shows keep the villains for as long as possible.
You could look at slow television as something closer to reality. The local channel SBS showed a three hour video of the view from the Ghan train. The three hour edit showed the more interesting parts of the Ghan trip. SBS then showed the less edited 18 hour version with all the daylight hours from the whole trip. The 18 hour version is as close to reality as you will get on television.
The 18 hour version could be downloaded in the background while you are online doing other things. You could then watch it in smaller segments. I watch it in 30 minute segments. MKR and MaFS could have their 18 hour equivalents.
The Bachelor type shows are reported as feeding massive amounts of alcohol to the women and delaying filming late into the night in the hope that the women will do stupid things. Given the rules about unequal representation of men and women, the producers have to create a situation where the women make themselves appear stupid. Bachelorette are not restricted by the same rule and can do anything to make the men look stupid. The Bachelorette shows can also start feeding alcohol to the men for breakfast instead of waiting until lunch or the evening.
Police now have to wear body cameras to reveal the truth about encounters with the public. In reality television, the only reality would be body cameras with live feeds fitted to all contestants, staff, and hangers on during the whole show. Modern technology makes that easy.
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