Cops and incarceration: Constructing racial narratives in reality TV’s prisons

Abstract

In line with Jean Baudrillard’s theory of simulacrum, this chapter investigates the hyperconsumerism and commercialisation of bodies in reality television programs, specifically those set in American prisons. Using popular shows such as Cops and Lockup, the analysis contained here examines the manner in which African American male bodies are both framed and objectified by the surveillance of television cameras. With reference to both Judith Butler’s Notes Toward a Performative Theory of Assembly (2015) and Gilles Deleuze’s writings on Foucault’s Discipline and Punish (1986), the analysis unearths the role of the surveillant gaze in determining racial narratives and framing bodily identity.