Reality TV whingers need to suck it up

REALITY TV contestants love to whine about how they’ve been portrayed on our screens. This is why they don’t have a leg to stand on.

OPINION

LIKE so many of us who make up the Australian TV viewing population, a dose of reality TV has become part and parcel of a night home on the lounge.

Yup. I pretty much love a jab of jaw-dropping, totally unreal reality TV just as much as the next couch-loving, takeaway-eating viewer does.

Give me a few singers, some daggy dancers, divers, diners, potential newlyweds, nude first dates, Bachelors, outspoken Housewives or some budding home renovators and I’ll give any of these shows a whirl.

But while I love hearing what these reality ‘stars’ have to say on camera, I must admit I’m pretty tired of hearing the same old whinge that they’ve been portrayed unfairly.

When potential participants sign up for any kind of reality entertainment show, they need to enter into a commitment like they would a marriage — for better, for worse.

When I read that some of the Married at First Sight contestants (similar to a few Block contestants a few years ago) were feeling shattered, used and peeved, I think most of us probably thought the same thing: ‘it’s reality TV, for godsake!’

You signed up for it. You have had a number of years to work out there is a formula to all of these shows. There are characters to play. You have put your real persona into the hands of pesky editors and producers. Deal with it.

Last night, a duo of Married At First Sight brides blew the lid on the hugely successful reality series, claiming they were “conned” by the show, plied with alcohol and refused bathroom breaks while working under extreme conditions.

“There’s no support, you’re treated like monkeys, you basically beg to go for toilet breaks,” the show’s “runaway bride” Lauren Bran told news.com.au’s James Weir, who recently gained his Masters in MAFS recaps.

“The filming — because it goes for so long — you’re tired, you’re drunk, you’re not yourself, they get you at your worst. I was boozy, they booze you up. They encourage it. They’re just free-pouring the whole time. At one stage I had someone put a couple of drinks in front of me. And I said, ‘Nah, nah, I’m good, I’m good,’ and they say, ‘Nah, have more to drink’.”

Another contestant — Perth truck driver Susan Rawlings — also blasted the show, telling news.com.au that it’s “completely not true at all”, and questioned the involvement of the so-called “experts.”

“How do they edit this and completely not give a sh*t about people’s lives?” she said. “They don’t give a sh*t about what others think of these people.”

Susan with her ex-‘husband’ Sean on the show. Picture: Channel 9

“On the hens night, there were jugs of water — they swapped it for vodka and Red Bull,” Bran, 33, recalled.

As James Weir pointed out, “booze seemed to play a big part in the series this year, with contestants getting noticeably candid at the weekly dinner parties.”

But it’s not only MAFS contestants complaining.

Just last week, My Kitchen Rules’ resident villain Josh Meeuwissen hit back at the show with explosive claims about being “blackmailed” by producers, saying some contestants were “heavily pressured” into answering questions, who “threatened teams that they wouldn’t be allowed to leave the room.”

Josh claims he was “blackmailed” by producers. Picture: Channel 7

But you know what? Once you sign up for any of these shows, you have to deal with the end result. Good or bad.

No wonder Ten’s Gogglebox series has become a crowd favourite. The opinionated TV show’s reviewers, perched on their lounges at home (just like us) pretty much mirror what you and I are absolutely thinking at home.

Yes, for all the blood, sweat, tears and time that contestants put into these shows, of course most want to receive something more from their ‘journey’ (sorry, there’s that boring ‘J’ word).

Maybe it’s a happily ever after marriage, a huge profit from a renovated apartment, a cookbook or even a record deal.

And yes, maybe you would be kind of miffed that you took some unpaid leave from your job to be part of a reality show that, after the fat lady sang, you ended up receiving nothing out of it.

But that’s showbiz.

Reality TV IS entertainment. It’s smoke and mirrors. It’s total orchestration, usually dressed up as ‘reality’.

Never fear, it hasn’t just been the 2017 gang who have expressed their disappointment at the end of their reality TV stint.

The Block started 13 years ago in Sydney’s Bondi, but the year the show auctioned apartments from a block in Melbourne’s Prahan — in 2014 — turned out to be one of the most fiscally unsuccessful seasons.

There were rumours swirling of contestants ‘suing’ Channel Nine for compensation after poor profit results (you’d think we were talking Telstra share results here), while the network said it wouldn’t be coughing up any cash.

And back then, I agreed: it shouldn’t have.

“While we hope that all contestants walk away with a financial reward for the time and effort they commit to The Block, it is the buying public that determines the outcome of this program,” Michael Healy, Director of Television for the Nine Network, told news.com.au at the time.

Back then, two of the teams, Dee and Darren and Michael and Carlene, pocketed just $10,000 in an “awful” anticlimax, Dee told Kyle and Jackie O on their radio show in 2014.

“It was a completely unexpected result for all of us.”

The outspoken ‘Blockheads’ revealed the financial toll taken on the couple since filming, saying the pair were “in the red”.

“Not only did we not come away with anything but people have to understand we all put our lives on hold,” Dee said.

“We started filming in April, we’re in October, none of us have earned any money.

“Michael and Carlene and Daz and I all have mortgages, it’s an expensive exercise to take the risk and go on that show. It’s really not a great scenario.

“We’re in the red from it.”

Sorry guys, we’re sure most contestants are really, really, really nice people, but you all CHOSE to be a part of these shows. No one was holding a gun to your head or forcing you to sign on the dotted reality contract line.

At least the Real Housewives of Melbourne and Sydney have yet to come out firing on all media cylinders about how they are being represented (or is that misrepresented?) on the franchises of the two polar opposite and successful shows. I think they ‘get’ how entertainment works.

So if you are contemplating a foray into reality land, there’s just one thing to remember: it’s all showbiz!

You may like to vent your reality woes to @MelissaHoyer on Twitter.