The Hunger Games and Reality TV

How Real is Reality TV? In the novel The Hunger Games, many aspects relate to reality TV. Through the Gamemakers and, in television producers the truth is altered. The line separating fact and fiction is truly blurred. The producers do their job so well that it leaves the audience questioning every move on the show. They wonder “where is the real in reality TV?” The answer is that due to their mixed genre and producer editing there is not any.
Reality TV is not just one genre, but a mix of two. The producers “[use] the documentary-fiction genre mix to help market its product.” [ ] This “new” genre allows some leeway in the reality and fictional aspects of the show. “Reality series use documentary techniques to generate emotional accuracy; that is, the sense that these people are showing you their true emotions or are behaving in psychologically convincing ways, even if the events they are reacting to are obviously staged.”[1] The fictional aspect of this genre is what producers rely on for more ratings. Treating the show as a fictional sitcom lets the producers stage events to create more drama. They can do this easily but still have to be wary of the documentary side of the genre. If the audience can tell that there are too many fake scenes on the show they will not watch it. Viewers can go from “this show is so good,” to as Samantha Bee put it, “a totally, unabashedly fake, phony, manipulated, a sham.”[ ] Some shows can not only rely on the genre mix but also must rely on their editors.
Editors of reality TV shows are the true stars because they choose what kind of story to tell. In The Hunger Games, the Gamemakers chose to tell the story of the star-crossed lovers of District 12. In reality TV the editors do the same. IF anything would harm the shows view ratings the editors take care of it. Take for instance on the CBS show Big Brother; racists comments were made during the online live feed, but knowing that would hurt the viewer ratings the editors chose to take it out of the episode air on television a few days later.[ ] This caused uproar since because it showed how manipulated reality TV shows are. Editors can also make shows more interesting by combining clips to create drama. They do their job so well that it leaves the audience questioning every move on the show. The editors also take weeks and weeks of filming and squeeze it into a 45 minute show.
In reality TV, the fictional part of the genre outshines the documentary part. Through the producers’ and editors actions the truth is altered and the audience is feed lies. The line separating fact and fiction is not blurred, but broken. The audience may think it is real but it is all fake.