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Sparkle (3)
My addiction started with good intentions.
I am a scholar who studies representations of black women so it made sense to look for black women on reality television shows. This was not a practice I was unfamiliar with. Watching Jeopardy or Wheel of Fortune was always more “appealing” growing up when there was a black person on the show. I remember, even as a child, hoping/wishing/praying that the contestant would not embarrass us. Us being me and them. Us being all black people. It is funny how even as a child I was aware that “their” (other black people’s) representation was my representation and vice versa. It was clear to me that white people did not always know how to tell us apart.
This was no different from my mama’s insistence that I behave well around company and in public. She raised me to believe that my actions were always a direct reflection of her and her mothering skills. I knew that being the daughter that most favored her, I owed it to her to “represent” well. Over the years, studying race and oftentimes being the only black person in the room, I realize that the same premise applies to race in general. Black folk (and people of color generally) are expected to be the individual representatives of all black folk. My mama was right (she always is).
So, this new knowledge that I carried in my pocket made me consistently aware that I was always being watched and judged as a child. I still am as an adult.
Reality television took me by surprise. I had no way of knowing that it would have such a hold on me. All it took was one innocent episode or one night of insomnia, and I was hooked. The lure of supposed “reality” appeals to my academic curiosity, my ethnographic voyeurism, and my small town nosiness all at the same time. And while I know that reality television shows are scripted, edited, and manipulated—it is still the promised reality that gets me. I feel invested in characters. I feel like I know them (and their business). And I always, always want to know more!
As both a fan and critic of reality television I find myself fascinated with my addiction. I imagine that it is something more than the undeniable lie of reality that has captured the attention of so many people (for so many reasons).
A few years ago I wrote an article challenging race and gender representations on reality television. At the time, it was Flavor of Love that had me whipped. I knew the storyline/s, the characters, their real names, their “new” names, and why they had the names. I was happily duped by the bad acting of a cast who pretended to be infatuated with Flavor Flav. Conversations with friends and colleagues usually began with, “Girl, did you see Flavor of Love last night?” Damn. And just like that, I was addicted. Popular culture trapped me in a corner and swallowed me whole. I watched every season … and the follow up shows, and the reunion shows, and the spin offs. Turning the channel did not divert my obsession because on the next channel I found other shows that promised me “regular, everyday” characters who were
