• Every Friday,

    20 Minutes

    invites a personality to comment on a social phenomenon in its "20 Minutes with" meeting...

  • Valérie Rey-Robert's essay,

    Téléréalité: La fabrique du sexisme

    , was published by Hachette Pratique on April 13, 2022.

  • Throughout the pages, the author explains how programs such as

    Les Marseillais

    or

    Les Reines du shopping

    are based on sometimes sexist, homophobic, racist and classist mechanisms.

From

Marseillais

to

Koh-Lanta

, from

La Villa des coeursbrokens

to the

Queens of Shopping

…, reality TV shows punctuate the late afternoons and evenings of millions of French women and men.

The genre has become a lasting part of the audiovisual landscape, far from the fiery controversies and the winds of indignation provoked twenty-one years ago when

Loft Story

was launched .

These programs deserve, however, that we look at them more closely in order to distinguish the oppressive mechanisms at work there: misogyny, homophobia, racism and class contempt… This is what feminist activist Valérie Rey-Robert explains. in an exciting essay

Reality TV: the factory of sexism

, published by Hachette Pratique.

She assures

20 Minutes

: another reality show is possible.

You say you are an avid viewer of reality shows.

How would you define your relationship to these programs?

I believe that when you watch community life programs [

Les Marseillais

…], it's never for very rewarding reasons.

I don't claim to look at them with second degree, to make fun of the candidates.

I have no contempt for them.

We get caught up in these shows like we can get caught up in soap operas.

We are not fooled that half of the things are faked, but we live the suspense of love stories that come and go, we take pleasure in it.

We generally watch it with one eye, while doing something else at the same time, like background music behind us.

You point out that the main target of the majority of these programs is a female audience and yet they seem designed “to respond primarily to a male and heterosexual gaze”.

That is to say ?

This manifests itself in the way women are seen and filmed, in the way they act.

Their clothing is intended for the heterosexual male gaze.

They wear skilful mixes of short, holey, pierced, low-cut clothes… at all times of the day and night, including in the morning at breakfast.

In these shows, women only talk about boys – and a little bit about their physical appearance.

In coaching shows, men are absent but omnipresent.

Everything is done for them.

In

Les Reines du shopping

, the themes regularly appeal to the heterosexual couple, women are supposed to make themselves "beautiful and elegant" for a man.

In

Incredible Transformations

, very often, there is a man, himself neglected, who arrives and says: “My wife is letting herself go.

I don't want her anymore…” We understand that the couple relies entirely on the woman's efforts and that the man doesn't have to make any.

In shows about collective life, the men spend their time cheating on their girlfriends and the latter are supposed to wait patiently, like Ulysses' wife, for them to have finished their pranks in order to come back to them and finally behave.

You mention the "Nabilla case law", that is to say the fact of performing an alleged stupidity in the hope of attracting the attention of the public and the media.

Isn't this strategy tricky?

The majority of reality TV contestants – I won't pass judgment on their intelligence – are poorly cultured.

Nabilla said that at the time of her sentence on the shampoo she was very little cultured, so she was invited a lot in the media so that we could make fun of her.

She quickly realized that she was invited for this and that it brought her money.

She ended up playing it.

Following that, many candidates said to themselves that they should do the same.

They are aware that there are sequences in the shows, that they will be filmed more.

Calling out your stupidity is also a way to get out of difficult situations.

Recently, Maeva Ghennam and Sarah Fraisou, two important figures of reality TV, had bad buzz by advertising a product,

one for rejuvenating the vagina [actually the vulva] and the other for shrinking the vagina.

Faced with the negative reactions, they backtracked, citing their stupidity.

Despite everything, it is also a trap from which we cannot escape in the long term.

Nabilla will undoubtedly remain the girl with big breasts and a little corny for a long time.

You write that it is in the coaching programs that sexism is the most significant… Is the benevolence of these programs therefore only a mirage?

An Anglo-Saxon sociologist used the term "post-feminism" to explain a world where equality between men and women would be acquired and where what women would need (a better salary, a better career, etc.) would depend on themselves and of them alone.

The coaching shows are all about that: women are told that if they acquire certain mannerisms, a certain look, if they embody good white, bourgeois femininity, then they can "go to dinner at the ambassador” – I'm barely caricaturing because it's the kind of improbable theme that can be found in

Les Reines du shopping

.

All reality TV shows are primarily aimed at working-class women.

Cristina Cordula [in

The Queens of Shopping

] will generously transmit its cultural capital, that is to say the right way to behave.

She will check that you are able to apply it and, if you apply it, then maybe you will have the chance to change your social class.

Women are told that it is by being “chic and elegant” – two terms that come up a lot in these shows – that one extracts oneself from one's social class.

You argue that the productions prejudge that working-class women are more “authentic”…

We are sold the authenticity of working-class women and at the same time the coaching programs are based on the humiliation and denigration of their practices.

In

Incredible Transformations

, in each episode, someone explains that a relative dresses badly and will support his point by showing an item of clothing that is supposed to represent this “laxity”.

Often, the Croc is seen as the emblem of what women who neglect themselves wear.

The coaches will make fun of it, denigrate it.

These women are asked to be authentic while reproaching them for this authenticity.

In

The Queens of Shopping

, when a candidate is fat, regularly, we will send her to a store where there is not her size.

There is a triple humiliation: that of not going into the clothes, that of wasting time and that of ending up with a shopping trip that will make her lose because the clothes will not be suitable for her size.

If the title of the book focuses on sexism, you indicate over the pages that reality TV also produces homophobia and racism.

To what extent?

In these shows, men and women are expected to respond to extremely specific gender stereotypes.

When there is a gay candidate, the productions are annoyed: “What do we do with it?

Systematically, they select effeminate gay men – it is not a problem that they are effeminate, but they are expected to go on the side of women because a gay is necessarily supposed to “be” a little bit woman.

It's a vision of homosexuality that is narrow, and simply homophobic.

I am thinking, for example, of Eddy [

Les Anges

,

La Villa des coeursbrokens

…] who we will always see taking part in girls' conversations and not those of boys.

It wouldn't be a problem if this also happened with straight men, but that's unimaginable: you absolutely don't expect a straight candidate to prefer chatting with girls because he finds their conversations more interesting.

Homosexuality is still shown as something shameful.

Recently, two very famous contestants, Vivian and Illan, filmed themselves on social media playing a game of holding hands in the street.

The first to drop had lost.

They kept repeating “Oh, the shame!

It's a way of associating with homosexuality the fact that two men hold hands and say that we should be ashamed of it.

The rare times when there are couples of homosexual candidates in these programs,

they are not shown in the same way as straight couples.

Eddy and his companion were filmed as good comrades, but we never saw them kissing, having gestures of tenderness… Whereas, on the straight candidate side, we very often see the girls straddling the boys or curled up against them.

The only lesbian couple we've seen in recent years was on a dating show.

There was the problem of coming out, with the fear of family rejection.

The coach completely brushed it off by saying "Love is stronger than anything", as if the fear of suffering from homophobia was not completely legitimate.

on the straight candidate side, we very often see the girls straddling the boys or curled up against them.

The only lesbian couple we've seen in recent years was on a dating show.

There was the problem of coming out, with the fear of family rejection.

The coach completely brushed it off by saying "Love is stronger than anything", as if the fear of suffering from homophobia was not completely legitimate.

on the straight candidate side, we very often see the girls straddling the boys or curled up against them.

The only lesbian couple we've seen in recent years was on a dating show.

There was the problem of coming out, with the fear of family rejection.

The coach completely brushed it off by saying "Love is stronger than anything", as if the fear of suffering from homophobia was not completely legitimate.

What about racialized candidates, that is to say perceived as non-white?

Many black people who watch

Les Marseillais

say the show gives the impression that Marseille is an all-white city.

There are very few blacks in reality TV and almost no Asians.

Conversely, some white candidates do what I call arab phishing [on the model of black phishing]: they use pseudonyms that may imply that they are of North African origin, put on a foundation darker than their complexion... They have noticed that many racialized teenagers look at them and they try to capture this audience by adopting these looks or by evoking an interest in Islam, especially during Ramadan, which they do not have three quarters of the time.

It's paradoxical, because

Le Mad Mag

[an NRJ 12 program on reality TV broadcast from 2011 to 2018] was presented by Ayem Nour – which would be unimaginable in other shows – and that the big stars of reality TV, like Nabilla or Maeva, are from the Maghreb.

But these are still very white shows, where negrophobic remarks have been made, the CSA has denounced it and the productions have not reframed the candidates concerned... Racism is still very present.

Behind the appearance of modernity in which these programs are draped, you emphasize that they promote a very standardized vision of heterosexuality, because the goal is most often to achieve fulfillment in heterosexual marriage, in becoming a parent… Would you say that they have a reactionary background?

It is not a background: they are truly extremely reactionary.

When you see a flamboyant character like Cristina Cordula, you first think of something very modern.

But all of these shows emphasize that the accomplishment of a woman is to become a mother – those who are constantly repeating “My best job is mom”.

This highlights marriage as the fulfillment of a lifetime.

Nabilla Vergara, through her social networks, the programs dedicated to her, will never highlight her business but her husband and her son.

She considers that the public expects that.

These shows tell us that the woman must wait until the man is done having fun and that the man must have fun to prove his manhood.

Once this is done, they must pair up,

stay as a couple, have a beautiful all-white wedding and have children.

Many candidates end their careers in

Moms & Famous

.

And there are no

Famous & Dads

.

If reality TV is a “sexist factory”, would you go so far as to say that it produces a sexist audience?

You have to be careful on that.

Almost all cultural productions manufacture sexism.

In the current state of research, what we know is that if we watch a sexist program while already being sexist, we will be reinforced in our convictions.

But we cannot know if the simple vision of the Marseillais is enough to become sexist if we are not at the base.

It is quite obvious that, since we are composed of multiple layers between what we watch, what we read, our interactions, our parents, etc., attributing our sexism to a single program would be difficult.

But not imputing it would be too.

The problem is not reality TV but the sexism or homophobia that exists strictly everywhere: we see it in all social classes and it is not a question of stupidity.

Would another reality show, more inclusive, respectful of each and everyone, be possible?

Yes, it is not the television genre that causes sexism, but the way of producing it: the performance of the candidates, the editing, the presentation...

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  • Television

  • Reality show

  • Sexism

  • Homophobia

  • Racism

  • The people of Marseilles

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