Reality TV, Faking It, and the Transformation of Personal Identity

Abstract

This article traces the impact of reality television programs on personal identity, by highlighting the television program "Faking It." Reality television programs have now infiltrated virtually every area of the medium, and they occupy a significant portion of the televisual terrain. They have irrevocably altered our mediascape, and to the extent that our interactions with mass mediated cultural forms shape our identities, they are in the process of altering us. One of the most recent developments in reality programming has been the makeover show, where participants are offered everything from redecorated apartments to redesigned bodies. This article considers the hybrid makeover, game, and reality show "Faking It" as a cultural form that intensifies the relationship between commodification and personal identity. "Faking It" provides a televisual Petri dish in which to observe the contemporary production of the self as commodity sign, inscribed by markers of class and identity. Much of "Faking It" involves class passing, most typically upward. There are also programs that revolve around gender. The implicit premise of "Faking It" is that these new selves will offer fulfillment, that transformation is commensurate with improvement. In this way, "Faking It" reaffirms the therapeutic ethos that marked the rise of century consumer culture and has continued to define the contemporary milieu. (English)