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Reality TV : Tropes 225 Views
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Transcript
- 00:01
We speak student!
- 00:05
[ yodeling ]
- 00:07
Reality TV Part 14
- 00:09
Tropes
- 00:12
[ bird caws ]
Full Transcript
- 00:12
What is a trope?
- 00:14
A trope would be a pattern that recurs throughout a work of art
- 00:17
or a genre of art.
- 00:19
So any pattern that occurs throughout all different types of literature is a trope,
- 00:23
or throughout art is a trope.
- 00:25
So in reality TV,
- 00:27
the tropes are things like confessionals.
- 00:29
This is when a person
- 00:32
turns to the camera and starts
- 00:34
talking directly to the camera,
- 00:35
confessing all of their deepest desires.
- 00:37
This started in earnest with The Real World,
- 00:39
when they would take people out of their rooms
- 00:42
and say, "What are you thinking about?"
- 00:43
And the person would be like, "Oh, my God.
- 00:44
So-and-so's so hot." Or like, "I can't believe he said that about me." Or whatever.
- 00:46
Now it's on almost every show.
- 00:48
Every reality show, whether it's a competition show or not.
- 00:52
So people on The Bachelor do it,
- 00:54
- but people on American Idol do it. - Cooking shows.
- 00:55
Cooking shows, exactly.
- 00:56
You turn to the camera and you basically say how you're feeling.
- 00:58
So a confessional. A judging panel
- 01:00
is a trope that comes up again and again.
- 01:02
And we actually have archetypes
- 01:05
within the judging panel, which is
- 01:08
the different types of characters that show up again and again on the judging panel.
- 01:11
It started with Simon Cowell.
- 01:12
So now on every -- With American Idol.
- 01:14
So now on every single judging panel,
- 01:16
- we have... - The cranky pants.
- 01:17
- Exactly. - The airhead.
- 01:19
- Yup. - Where everything's nice and awesome --
- 01:21
So like the Lego Movie, everything is awesome.
- 01:23
And then there's the weirdo.
- 01:26
- Yep. - That's like Uncle Larry.
- 01:27
Exactly. Exactly. Steven Tyler.
- 01:29
- [ indistinct ] - Exactly.
- 01:30
And so these archetypes form this trope
- 01:33
of the judging panel.
- 01:35
And it can go on and on,
- 01:37
but basically all of the patterns that you see
- 01:38
recurring throughout all of reality television
- 01:40
serve as the tropes.
- 01:41
So if you wanted to analyze
- 01:43
reality TV as a type of literature,
- 01:45
you can do that because you can say,
- 01:47
"What is it about these confessionals
- 01:49
that work across genres?
- 01:50
How is it the same
- 01:52
in a dating show and in a cooking show?
- 01:54
How is it different?"
- 01:55
And so there's a lot of analysis that can be done there.
- 01:58
[ pen writing ]
- 01:59
What is a trope?
- 02:04
No, it's not the hair that bald guys put on their head.
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