GUEST AUTHOR BLOG: Q KELLY
Hi, everyone! I’m glad to be at The
Henderson Files today. Thank you, Patty.
Reality TV. Dating on TV. The Bachelor. The Bachelorette. These
shows are so-called guilty pleasures for many people, but not for me. I proudly
own up to my “guilty” pleasures and to my bubblegum TV. After I posted about a
certain “The Bachelor” contestant a few years ago on Facebook, one of my
college friends expressed astonishment that I would watch such trash. I was too
smart for that, he said. I grinned and shrugged. “I love the show,” I replied.
“What can I say?”
Heck, I love these shows so much that
I am Facebook friends with quite a few Bachelor
and Bachelorette alumni. Not that
they have the faintest idea who I am.
All this to say…the idea of writing a
book about a reality TV
Because of my love for The Bachelor and The Bachelorette, I have followed many of these show-related blogs
for years. Some of them, such as Reality Steve (www.realitysteve.com – warning, show
spoilers!) were instrumental in providing the background knowledge I needed to
write authentically about the filming of a reality TV show. In countless blog
posts and with his insider knowledge, Steve has pointed out the myriad ways in
which reality TV isn’t “reality.” For example, retakes and reshoots of scenes
are common, if for no other reason than to get a better camera angle. Booze is
plentiful—leads to loose lips and drama. Contestants are asked the same
question countless ways until they give up the answer producers want. Sometimes
a producer may dangle a carrot (“Say X thing we want you to say, and we’ll make
sure you get alone time with Lead Y”). Many of the contestants are actors or
have/desire some kind of Hollywood career. All are gorgeous. Fantastic looking.
They don’t need to go on TV to find a date. Sure, a few are there in the hopes
of genuinely falling in love, but the majority are there for the adventure and
the experience. Absolutely nothing is wrong with that, but it does illuminate
the hypocrisy of shows in which contestants get vilified for “not being here
for the right reasons.”
I had always known this in the back of
my mind, but season after season, I sat back happily for my bubblegum TV. I
can’t anymore. When I settled in to watch the season of The Bachelorette airing now (Desiree’s season), I could NOT get
into it. I had just finished Reality
Lesbian, and perhaps it was the process of writing a book and doing reality
TV dating my own way, but I just could not get into The Bachelorette anymore. It is the same old, same old, same old.
Season after season. The formula works, no doubt. But it may have gotten too
old for this particular viewer. (If I was in charge of these shows, I’d shake
them up a bit.)
No doubt I’ll give these shows another
try in the future. For now, however paradoxically, it seems that writing this
book has soured me to watching the shows I used to love.
Ah well! Such is life.
For more on “Reality Lesbian” and the
first two chapters, go here: http://www.qkellybooks.com/2013/06/reality-lesbian-is-out.html
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