In the recent BAFTA awards there was a category called "Constructed Reality." It's good to see an acknowledgment that reality show reality isn't reality. In order to capture viewers, the producers of such shows fall back on traditional storytelling.
A case in point: the MTV show called Catfish.
Each episode starts with the show being contacted by somebody who has been in an online relationship with someone else--often for several years--but never met them, never had a video call with them, and is beginning (!) to wonder whether they are who they say they are.
Then the two guys who front the show track down the other person who has sent photos in which he or she looks like a model but turns out to weigh 400 pounds, or be a guy who was pretending to be a girl, or a girl who was pretending to be a guy, or just somebody on a power trip (often a friend or relative of the victim).
Confrontation, tears, sometimes an apology but usually not, and a follow-up video phone call a few months later during which the perp says he/she has stopped doing all that, has lost five pounds, and is feeling much better about him/herself.
It's classic three-act structure.
Act One: Our protagonists, Max and Nev, are contacted by a victim and take on the quest: to find out whether his or her online true love actually is true.
Act Two: Progress and setbacks. They search on Facebook but there is no trace of that person. They try the phone number, but they get voice mail. Breakthrough: they find a link that tells them where the person lives, they go there, they approach...the door opens. The person is not who she or he pretended to be!
Act Three: Resolution. The victim asks why! why! why me?! The perpetrator (villain) refuses to apologize and gets shot down (not literally, so far, just by the victim saying they never want to see/him her again). Happy ending: a few months later the victim has moved on and the perp claims to have reformed.
Max and Nev have saved another victim and ride off into the sunset. In another town, another deluded soul awaits.
AND THEN THERE'S REALITY
The other day I read an article about how it really happens. Usually it's the perp who contacts the show and says I've been fooling this person for years and I want to come clean. Meaning, I want to be on television.
Then the show approaches the victim and says we hear you're in an online relationship yet you've never met, would you like us to find out whether this person is genuine? They say, Yes, I really want to know! Meaning, Yes, I really want to be on television. They agree to read a letter on camera that makes it sound like they approached the show.
Of course that makes sense--if the producers didn't already have a signed release from the perp, they'd waste a lot of time tracking down people who, when confronted, would just say screw you, I'm not going on TV (I think there are still such people...) and a week of filming would be down the drain.
Basically the story has been constructed, but the two guys who front the show are not told the details--I believe that only because it does inject a much-needed note of spontaneity and I don't think they're good enough actors to fake it.
I guess I should have written a letter during the first season:
"Dear Catfish, for several episodes I have been in a relationship with a TV series, and I am beginning to wonder whether the series is being honest with me..."
Ah well, I guess it's comforting that we're not in a post-story age, just a post-admitting-it's-a-story age.
