1-2 Activity: Lens Exploration
IDS 404: Popular Culture
Professor Mack
Zachary Talbot
The area of popular culture I will be exploring is reality television. The specific example that I
want to focus on is The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. The franchise quickly became the most
viewed city, rating number one amongst the competition (IMDB, n.d.)
I have plenty of existing knowledge as it relates to reality television. I have grown up watching
shows such as Big Brother, The Real World, Survivor, and The Hills. While these were and are
extremely popular, it is nowhere close to the fame that The Real Housewives franchise receive today.
Let’s look at reality TV from a historical lens. Reality television dates back to 1948, when the
first show aired titled Candid Camera, adapting a format that was previously used on the radio (Guenter,
n.d.). While many changes were made to reality TV over the years, it came back to a whole new format
when The Real World first aired in 1992. The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills had it’s series premier
on October 14, 2010, and began with nearly 2 million viewers.
When analyzing reality TV from a humanities lens, we can see evolution and change of art in
what modern day television has become. Reality TV was born as a show placing people in unwitting
situations to catch their reactions and is now dominated by the same award-winning format. A fly-on-
the-wall situation and/or one-on-one interviews with producers. These scenes are strategically edited to
create a coherent narrative, as first depicted on The Real World (Berman, 2022).
Let’s look at reality TV using the natural and applied sciences lens. Reality TV, while seemingly
rooted in entertainment, can be analyzed through the natural and applied science lens in several
interesting ways. For example, reality television provides real-world data on human behavior in semi-
controlled environments. Scientists could study how people react under stress, in group dynamics, or
when being observed.
Reality television connects deeply to a social science lens because it reflects and shapes human
behavior, culture, identity, and social structures. Reality TV often showcases or challenges cultural
norms—like ideas about family, gender roles, success, or beauty. Moreover, shows like Big Brother or
Survivor display how people form alliances and handle power struggles, easily displaying group
dynamics and hierarchies.
References
Berman, J. (2022, August 4). Reality TV Has Reshaped Our World, Whether We Like It or Not. TIME.
https://time.com/collection/reality-tv-most-influential-seasons/6199108/reality-tv-influence-on-world/
Every real housewives franchise in order of popularity. (2017). IMDb.
https://www.imdb.com/list/ls523317038/
Guenter, S. (n.d.). American reality tv.pdf.
https://www.sjsu.edu/people/scot.guenter/courses/ams1b/s2/American%20Reality%20TV.pdf
