Posts tagged San Francisco

The other day, in my post “So Delicious! A-Look at The A-List: New York,” I very thinly discussed the role of stereotypes in television, a relationship I see as entirely necessary for any program, specifically within the scope of reality, to work. In this companion-post, I want to flesh that out a little more while addressing my belief as to why a Housewives or A-List show will probably never work in San Francisco.

One of the reasons why reality franchises like Real Housewives, Jersey Shore, and Real World are so successful is that they use stereotypes as a foundation and build upon and exploit them in depth. Jersey Shore is a prime example of TV capitalizing on a stereotype and needs no explanation, but consider the Real Housewives and the casts and cities it has branched out into as they relate to the stereotypes exaggerated in each variation: New York – sophistication, Orange County – blonde/plastic surgery, Atlanta – black/music, New Jersey – Italian/family, DC – politics, Beverly Hills – fame/wealth, and Miami – Latin/food — each acutely depicts what an audience expects and believes to be true about the people of each city. Whether or not such a stereotype defines that city is irrelevant because the purpose of the franchise is not to depict the general population of the city, but rather to exploit and entertain our fancies of the different types of women in our country through these stereotypes that are relative to the places we believe them to come from most often.

Look, no television show is ever going to succeed if the audience can’t enter into it with some foreknowledge of the characters or storyline. Lost, one of the most abstract shows in recent history, began with the very easy storyline of ‘plane crashes on deserted island’ — a common plot that any viewer could use as an entrance point to the series. From there, once it solidified its core audience, it was able to branch out into the more fantastical, unfamiliar plot archs it became known for. With reality TV the plot isn’t readily accessible from the beginning, so the only bridge between the audience and the show available, at least from the outset, is achieved through stereotypical characters. The familiarity draws the viewer in and after justifying his/her preconceptions of the characters through cliche dialogue, bitch fests, and cat fights the series can start to embrace other aspects of the characters (even if they often don’t).

For The A-List: New York, the obvious stereotype is fashionable, materialistic gay men, but because it is the only arm of the series (potential franchise?) the impression is that the image portrayed is a stereotype of the entire gay community. The clue that this isn’t the desired impression though is in the very name of the show. By calling it the New York variation of The A-List the producers are doing two things: 1) anticipating the backlash of the gay media criticizing the stereotype as representative of the culture as a whole, and 2) setting up potential spin-offs in other cities (i.e. The A-List: Los Angeles, The A-List: Miami). But in order for my stereotype rule to work in #2, The A-List would have to pull from different niches of the gay community specific to different cities, just as Real Housewives does for women.

There is no denying that the gay community has a ton of subcultures within the larger umbrella of LGBT, and one might even argue that these are more easily definable than the stereotypes of the straight community. The problem though is whether or not these subcultures are relative to the cities where potential spin-offs might take place. Is it predetermined enough to say LA = entertainment gays and Miami = beach/body gays? What then are Atlanta, Chicago, and Dallas? What cities are defined by daddy gays, sporty gays, or drag gays? I’m not convinced the stereotype/city model works as easily within the gay community. It wouldn’t make sense to an audience for the show to pick out a niche in the gay community and arbitrarily showcase it from any given city — there has to be a believable (again, based on stereotyping) correlation between cast and city for it to work, and I’m just not convinced there is.

I’m also not sure the model, in the context of Real Housewives or A-List, works for the city of San Francisco. What is the stereotype of a San Francisco citizen? Apparently we’re uber-liberal. Apparently we’re pretty casual. Do we hike more often? Are we environmentalist vegetarians? And are we these things more than the dwellers of any other city? And even if we are one of those stereotypes, are any of them interesting enough to base a reality series on?

Generally speaking, I don’t think the city of San Francisco (in all of its actual glory) is portrayed very well in the media. The most recent example being the Giants who, in their journey to become baseball’s 2010 champions, were, despite their playoff dominance, always deemed the underdog and called “misfits.” Yet, in a way, San Francisco is a city of misfits, isn’t it. Perhaps the city isn’t depicted positively because it is so undefinable. The city is home to many stereotypes, if not all of them!, and remains defined by its lack of definition, diversity and international attractiveness. Creating a reality show based on inhabitants of this city would prove difficult because there is no one stereotype that distinguishes the city from another, leaving no stereotyping foundation as an entrance for the audience.

Obviously I’m just hypothesizing here from my own observations, so I’m curious to know what other people think. Does reality TV only work when playing up stereotypes? If so, is that offensive? And what about San Francisco, could it be used as the hub of one of the Housewives or A-List shows, gay or otherwise?