The Postmodern World

The Postmodern World

"This is the story of seven strangers...picked to live in a house...work together...have their lives taped...and find out what happens when people stop being polite...and start getting POSTMODERN!"

For fourteen seasons, MTV's The Real World has captivated millions of young people throughout America and the world. The premise is simple enough: stick seven racially, socially, and sexually disparate twenty-somethings into an urban pad for 6 months, then hope to God that you've chosen the right mix to produce hours and hours of drama. The Real World, now filming its fifteenth season in downtown Philadelphia, ushered in a new form of television and is often cited as the first "reality" based television program. The trend took a few years to finally emerge, but by the beginning of the 20th century, reality television became embraced by viewers and network executives alike. In fact, the fall 2004 lineup of the 4 major networks (FOX, NBC, ABC, CBS) show a total of 20 primetime reality shows! Postmodern theorists help us understand why these types of television programs are so popular in today's society. I'd like to turn to The Real World, America's first quintessential reality show. I will describe how it fits into the postmodern concepts illustrated by theorists such s Lyotard, Jameson and Baudrillard, and how The Real World producers manipulate these concepts to draw millions of viewers each week.

The word postmodern is a term that often evades a concrete definition. However, in pretty broad terms postmodernism dismisses the obvious, binary, contrasting categories that made up modernism. French theorist Jean-FranÐ*ois Lyotard is considered by many to have introduced the term "postmodern" into the popular vernacular. His idea of postmodernism is the rejection of the modernist idea of metanarratives: Grand Narratives of history, culture, and national identity that served to define (and restrict) human behavior. Lyotard's postmodern perspective shows the flaws in these grand narratives, which work to justify and support broad theories, like science, Christianity and Marxism, through which the modern (Western) world has come to understand and represent itself. In place of the Grand Narratives, postmodern theorists like Lyotard propose sets of "micronarratives" - small stories, small theories, which might explain a certain set of phenomena, but which don't make any claims to universal "truth." Such micronarratives would have value; they could arise from and be applied to specific situations, but none would claim to explain everything, or to explain all other theories, or to be the preferred or dominant framework through which any event could be understood. Postmodern micronarratives are multiple - there is one for every situation, rather than one narrative covering all situations - and they are different and largely incompatible; there's no way to put all the micronarratives together to form one unified coherent idea of how the world, or human beings, operate.

The producers of MTV's The Real World have cleverly incorporated the idea of micronarratives into their program. The cast members come from all over the country. They have different backgrounds, different morals and values, and different views on sexuality and politics. In short, each cast member abides by his or her own micronarrative. The genius of a show like The Real World is how the micronarratives interact with each other, producing violent conflicts or on the other side of the spectrum - strong romantic relationships. Several fights have broken out over the course of 14 seasons because micronarratives clash so severely. Just last week on The Real World San Diego, Frankie left the show because she was "too punk-rock." Apparently, her micronarrative was at odds with the rest of the cast who loved to party, be loud, and drink alcohol every single night. Now, who knows if MTV cast Frankie on purpose because they knew there would be definite conflict...but we can certainly speculate.

During the first few seasons of The Real World, MTV had no formula for their cast members but as the seasons progressed, executives discovered a successful pattern. Andy Denhart, in an article on salon.com sums it up:

Gone are the days when the producers plucked random people off the streets and invited them to live in a loft and have their life taped. In the first couple of years we met a hip-hop MC, a comic book artist and an AIDS activist. And the show often followed the characters as they pursued their careers and their goals. Later, complex identities turned into stock character traits. We got the frat boy, the sheltered religious girl, the down-to-earth black guy, the attractive gay person or various combinations of each. Worse, we met cast members who grew up with the