Gendered Transformations

Theory and Practices on Gender and Media

Claudia Alvares, Tonny Krijnen, Sofie Van Bauwel, Claudia Alvares, Tonny Krijnen, Sofie Van Bauwel

• Publisher: Intellect Books
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9781841503660
• eBook ISBN: 9781841504414
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Art General
• Index: Social Sciences

TFP brings together international researchers, students and industry professionals dedicated to promoting new research directions and to investigating the relationship between functional programming and other branches of Computer Science. This TFP volume includes some of the latest trends of functional programming, and it is an essential part of any modern programming languages library.

SECTION III

GENDERED SOCIALIZATIONS

CHAPTER NINE:
REALITY TV’S CONTRIBUTION TO THE GENDER
DIFFERENTIATION OF MORAL-EMOTIONAL REPERTORIES

Tonny Krijnen

Introduction

In its early days—the 1990s—reality TV evoked a great deal of debate (a case in point are programmes such as Big Brother and Temptation Island). Since then, the genre has widened and the term reality TV also incorporates factual programmes which ‘give an unmediated account of events, often associated with the use of video and surveillance-imaging technologies’ (Dovey, 2008: 136). Only the more extreme shows continue to be a topic of both academic and public deliberation. The arguments in the latter arena seem quite unambiguous: reality TV is accused of too much emotional display. Series and producers are said to be exploiting participants’ genuinely held feelings in order to gain a few points in the ratings over their competitors. Additionally, or rather because of this ‘emotion overload’, reality TV is also regarded as one of the culprits to blame for society’s moral decay. The genre’s viewers are accused of gloating and experiencing schadefreude over the pain, humiliation and sadness of those taking part, which is interpreted as a sign of the devaluation of morality. Even though some academic studies of ethical issues focus on the richness of the genre and contradict these arguments (cf. Hawkins, 2001; Hill, 2005), reality TV as a questionable presence in society is more often acknowledged than denied. Two very important assumptions underlie these persistent arguments concerning the genre’s suspicious content. First, and it may be superfluous to say so, the assumed relationship between the content and reception of reality TV is unsophisticated: the content is thought to have a direct effect on the moral capacities of its viewers. Secondly, a false opposition between morality and emotions is constructed: when the content is emotional, it seems impossible for it to have a positive impact on its audiences’ morality. In this chapter I take issue with both of these assumptions.

The starting point of my argument is that the content of reality TV is not necessarily bad or immoral. On the contrary, it can be seen as offering narratives for its viewers to engage with and employ to construct their own moral-emotional repertories (cf. Krijnen & Tan, 2009). Furthermore, I will demonstrate how the imagination of emotions and morality in these shows, and the relationship between the two, is strongly gender-differentiated, shedding light on gender differences in moral-emotional repertories. The primary research question is: how is the relationship between emotions and morality imagined in the (Dutch) reality shows, The Golden Cage and Farmer Wants a Wife, and are these imaginations gender-differentiated?

To answer this question, the content of the two reality shows referred to above—which present the extreme ends of the reality-TV spectrum—is analysed. The Golden Cage has been the centre of heated debate on a national and international level (Van de Velde, 2006; Wade, 2007). The programme is the primordial Big Brother, and situates ten participants (both men and women) in a luxurious villa. The last one standing wins the villa and 1 million Euros. The main difference to Big Brother is that the audience does not vote and the participants have to eliminate each other. Elimination in this case means that someone must voluntarily decide to leave. Because of this last feature, the show is often rejected for its immoral content as it is said to cause bullying and other malicious behaviour. The Dutch version of Farmer Wants a Wife, however, has been hailed by critics and audiences alike and is celebrated as an authentic, high-quality programme. The focus lies with single people (men) who look after a farm while looking for a partner, with the ultimate goal being to find love. After introducing themselves on TV, interested women can send a letter. The later episodes revolve around the farmers having to choose between the possible candidates. Starting with an initial ten, the farmers engage in different activities with the participants to decide which women they want to leave and which they want to stay, leading up to the final choice of one of them.

The programmes are different but also contain the traditional features of a reality show; they both provide factual entertainment, there is a psychological twist (in The Golden Cage participants have to eliminate each other, in Farmer Wants a Wife the farmer gets to choose the partner) and there is almost continuous video surveillance (Dovey, 2008). Therefore, analysing and comparing the two provides an excellent opportunity to investigate the gendered imagination of moral-emotional repertories in the broad spectrum of reality television. To do so, however, it is necessary to carefully examine the assumptions underlying the evaluations of the genre.

Disentangling assumptions

The debates on the relationship between television and morality are flawed in two ways, namely by the presupposition of both an unsophisticated understanding of the link between television content and the reception thereof, as well as a false opposition between emotion and morality.

The relationship between content and its reception seems to be poorly understood in the public debates on morality and television. While in academia the concept of the ‘hypodermic needle theory’ is outdated (cf. McQuail, 2005), in the public arena the media are often understood as having direct effects in terms of either ‘copy-cat behaviour’ or a decline in moral values. In this chapter, reality TV’s audience(s) are understood as heterogeneous and dynamic. Viewers actively engage with the moral and emotional content of the reality programmes they watch, employing their insights to construct moral-emotional repertories. Reality TV is understood as a narrative that offers its viewers an opportunity to reflect on moral decisions and choices and experience the consequences in terms of emotions without actually feeling them in real life (Rorty, 1989; Nussbaum, 2001). This enables the viewers to develop a moral-emotional repertory, a stock of beliefs and values that are primary to moral deliberations and choices in real life. The major difference as regards hypodermic needle theory is that the viewer does not passively incorporate ideas into his or her moral emotional repertories, but instead reflects on TV content with different results (as has been frequently shown by many scholars such as Ang (1985) and Liebes & Katz (1990)).

In accordance with the perspective on the active audience, the content of the TV narrative is pivotal for these experiments by the viewers. The observer can only try out moral situations and emotions that are imagined in the narrative (Nussbaum 2001). Therefore, it is important to study the content of reality TV on a moral and emotional level. Of course, individuals employ other narratives beyond televised ones, such as those deriving from family, friends, education and so on. Television, however, is one of today’s most important suppliers (Allen, 1992; Gerbner, 1998).

In Nussbaum’s (2001) and Rorty’s (1989) formulation, the concepts of morality and emotion are laced together. When reflecting on moral issues the viewer takes into account the emotions experienced by all of the people involved. This junction alludes to the second misconception touched upon in the introduction: the false opposition between morality and emotion. Although this opposition seems to be natural, it is essentially constructed. Woven into the fabric of Western societies is what we might call the minimum conception of morality: ‘the effort to guide one’s conduct by reason—that is, to do what there are the best reasons for doing—while giving equal weight to the interests of each individual who will be affected by what one does’ (Rachels, 2003: 14). Moral decisions are based on reason: there is one best way of acting and everybody’s interests should be weighed equally.

The rational basis of morality, namely judiciously deciding which moral law applies, is the main focus of criticism. Nussbaum (2001) is one of the most important, contemporary critics in the field. According to her explanation of the intelligence of emotions, there are several reasons why feelings are strongly connected to rational moral thoughts. Emotions are not just about things, but are elicited by an object or situation that is of explicit value to a particular individual. This value is understood as the result of a complex set of (moral) beliefs about the object or circumstance. In other words, the emotion is often connected to a moral judgement. In this context, Nussbaum (2001) emphasizes the particularity of these beliefs and emotions and adopts a social-constructionist view. When employing her conception of morality, moral thought is understood as a process in which one imaginatively deliberates about the best reasons for conduct, while simultaneously taking into account all consequences and the feelings of all involved (including oneself).

Moral-emotional repertories are carefully constructed throughout life, and are therefore shaped by an individual’s history and the social norms of the society he or she resides in. These repertories should be understood as they are situated. In terms of social norms, Nussbaum (2001) looks at different causes for variations in emotional repertories; physical conditions, religious beliefs, social practices and language are all reasons why variances are found between societies. However, she does emphasize that individual histories are just as important.

In line with academic work on emotions and morality, Nussbaum (2001) emphasizes gender-differentiated moral-emotional repertories, and integrates two disciplines through the connection of emotions to morality: psychology and moral philosophy. A lot of research on gender-differentiation in emotions has been conducted (Timmers, Fischer & Manstead, 2003; Fischer, Mosquera, Van Vianen, & Manstead, 2004; Jansz, 2000). Here, though, a distinction should be made between emotional experience and emotional expression. Psychologists such as Frijda (2007) and Oatley, Keltner & Jenkins (2006) have argued that emotional experience might be similar for each individual, but the expression of emotions can differ due to expectations of social consequences, norms and motives, all of which are gender-differentiated (Timmers et al., 2003; Fischer et al., 2004). Research on the expression of emotion reveals three ways in which this is gender-differentiated. First, differences are often found in what is called the display of powerful and powerless emotions. The former, such as anger and contempt, serve to demonstrate assertiveness and power, while the latter, such as sadness, fear, guilt and shame, reveal vulnerability and internal blame. Men tend to express powerful emotions more often than women. Secondly, differences in the expression of pro-social emotions, such as joy and empathy, are also found. These emotions serve to establish and groom affective ties. Women tend to express these feelings more often than men do. Thirdly, the amount of emotional expression is also gender-differentiated. In general, women show their emotions more often than men (Fischer et al., 2004; Jansz, 2000). These research results offer a perspective that is quite similar to Nussbaum’s argument on gender differentiation in moral-emotional repertories.

Scholarly work on morality also highlights a distinction with regard to gender differentiation: a difference between moral values and moral deliberation. So far as the former are concerned, gender differences have rarely, if at all, been formulated. There is no reason to assume that women and men would have different moral values. When it comes to moral deliberation, however, Carol Gilligan (1982) argues for gender-differentiated moral orientation. One orientation—the ethics of justice—resembles the minimum conception of morality, while the other—the ethics of care—resembles Nussbaum’s notion of morality. Men are more often orientated towards the former and women the latter.

How reality TV contributes, reflects or maybe even sustains the construction of these gender differentiations is studied in this chapter. Starting from a constructionist point of view that moral-emotional repertories are built throughout life, one wonders how they become gender-differentiated. The importance of contemporary narratives for the construction of these repertories, and reality TV’s continuous display of emotions and (the breaching of) norms and values, turn it into an interesting case study which draws on what the genre offers its audiences in terms of moral-emotional repertories.

Researching the content

To answer the research questions, a qualitative content analysis of eighteen episodes of The Golden Cage and eight episodes of Farmer Wants a Wife was conducted. Since the duration of an episode of The Golden Cage is 25 minutes and those of Farmer Wants a Wife 55 minutes, this adds up to the analysis of equal amounts of broadcasting time (450 minutes of The Golden Cage, 440 minutes of Farmer Wants a Wife). All episodes were transcribed ad verbum and subjected to a computer-assisted content analysis (Atlas.ti).

The analysis focused on both verbal and visual content. The verbal aspect concentrated on moral expressions and moral statements made by the participants, which were reflections of the deliberations about what would be the most appropriate conduct in a certain situation, combined with the consequences for and feelings of all involved. Next, the transcripts were analysed for emotional...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Section I: Gendered Politics
• Section II: Embodied Performativities
• Section III: Gendered Socializations
• Conclusion
• Index
• Notes on Contributors