In this entry, I am going to share my analysis of an adult reality dating show, The Newlyweds and discuss how the concepts learnt are applied.
This show started out in the early 1960s and continued on all the way till the year 2013.
The Newlywed is an adult reality show with no scripts for the participants and all answers and opinions given by the participants are raw and un-edited answers. During the show when the wives answer the questions about the husband, the husband weren’t present and hence are not aware of their wives’ response to the questions asked.
The show is scheduled at night when kids are asleep as this show consists of adult contents being discussed which might not be suitable for children and usually during this period will the adults really have the time to settle down and watch the television together. It is also the timeslot when most of it’s targeted audience are watching the television.
I have also observed that as this show is screened in the western part of the world, the participants for the show are westerners, this is so that audience watching the show can relate to it. It feels closer to them and hence when the audiences feels the connection, they will get drawn and continue watching the show through the entire season.
The audience who watch the show at home have also benefited from the show and here’s a piece of evidence on where and why I gave that claim;
According to the fanmail that Fiske got when he conducted the study on The Newlyweds and as shown in lecture four of our class, despite the wife has a day job and she is the one who cooks dinner, she’ll time herself every night when she cooks dinner so that she will make it in time to watch the show with her husband after she completed her feminine duty, a patriarchal norm of cooking for her husband. When watching the show she will embarrass her husband by forcing him to answer the question that is in the game show. In this way she benefits by finding out how much the husband understands about her and at the same time she is challenging the patriarchal norms of always listening to the husband. By forcing the husband to answer the question on the game show, it embarrassed the husband and goes against the norm and hence it creates excitement and fun for the wife aka popular culture according to what we have learnt in the lecture and it is beneficial to the wife.
As two different episode of the show was shown in class - One from the 1960s and the other from the 1970s, I was able to make few other observations as well with regards to how the show was run and how the participants acted during the show.
Firstly, during the 1960s show, the questions asked are more general questions like ' what do you think is the most exerting thing your husband does at home?' whereas in the 1970s show, questions that were asked are more sexually questions like 'what is your biggest gripe about your husband's romantic technique '. This shows that during the 1970s show, the society have became more accepting towards discussions about sexual issues and hence the producers are able to put in such questions into the show and for the participants to answer and for the audiences to watch.
Secondly, I observed that during the 1970s show the participants are more open to showing their affections during the show like kissing and hugging when they got an answer correct as compared to the 1960s show. The participants during the 1970s show are also able to express their feelings more openly in terms of actions and words as compared to those in the 1960s. From this I can conclude that during the 1970s, people's mindset have changed and have become more able to openly express their thoughts and people are more accepting towards such acts of expression and public display of affection.
The last comparison that I've made between the 1960s and 1970s show is that the ladies in the 1970s show are more expressive and are more feminist as compared to the ladies in the 1960s show.
In the 1960s show, the ladies are more soft spoken and do not express much of their thoughts as compared to their husband. They do not openly challenge their husband as compared to the ladies in the 1970s show. In the 1970s show, the ladies openly challenge their husband's responses when they find that it's not what they feel or think, a few of them even openly attack their husband physically infront of the cameras.
This difference might be due to the fact that during the 1970s, ladies are more educated, the society is starting to accept both female and male's point of view and that gender equality is more prominent during that time as compared to 1960s. The ladies in the 1970s are more confident and expressive.
While watching The Newlywed in class, something else caught my attention as well. The advertisements that were put up during the commercial breaks of the show.
As advertisers knows that during the timeslot that The Newlywed is air, there is a huge group of it’s targeted audience watching the show and if they were to place their advertisements during the timeslot, they will be able to effectively capture the attention of their targeted audience.
It is as supported by what I’ve learnt in Lecture 2, from the documentary by Adam Curtis – The Century of the Self.
It argues that is media advertisement is a form of manipulation because it can be used to stimulate desires and needs in the interests of consumerism. The advertisements that are airedduring that timeslots are products like body soap for women, body sprays, paints and etc that are commonly used by the adults that are watching The Newlywed shows. The advertisements are also carefully planned and filmed to show that it’s products are solutions to a certain common issues that the targeted audience is facing or that the product satisfy the needs of its targeted audience and the social norm. In this way, the advertisement will be able to manipulate and stimulate the group of targeted audience to purchase it’s products.
