The name is absent

the pleasure found by audiences in reality shows is also a result of the
‘spectacle of the real’ (King, 2005), the paradoxical fascination of the
spectators with the mundane. Indeed, its simple projection onto screens is
what makes reality (un)real.¹⁰ Yet cinema has duly reflected the fears of such
double reflexivity introduced by new television formats with films that
express how far the simulational mode of experiencing reality has gone in the
contemporary age. Films such as The Truman Show (Weir, 1998) and Edtv
(Howard, 1999) project the possible negative consequences of these
television productions on the audience. The Truman Show is indeed the
ultimate reality show, in which the life of Truman (Jim Carrey) is directed
and manipulated without his knowledge in order to create a television
program. Truman represents the perfect manipulation of media: his life is
successfully broadcast to the world and is voyeuristically observed by the
diegetic audience who enjoy watching him from ‘the other side of glass’.
Therefore, what we find in reality shows is a technological twist of reality
and unreality in which both sides, participants and spectators, do not have to
directly interact with one another (but often, of course, actually do) in order
to maintain the confusion and produce fascination and pleasure.

Audiences perceive themselves through media like a mirror in front of
a mirror, a never-ending process that produces an ecstasy of simulated
communication in the audience. Reality shows have thus transformed the
perception of reality and fiction in mass media; and Videodrome, a film about
the future of visual technology, the potential development of reality shows
and the influence that they have over the audience, metaphorically
illustrates the link of media and humanity with a psychical and physical
transformation of the spectators through technology and media consumption.
The power of the television screen which ‘has become the retina of the
mind’s eye’ (Videodrome) has the potential to absorb the audience in the
same (un)reality that is broadcast. Nowadays, reality can be shown as fiction
and vice versa. The audience must continually decide what is real and what is
artificial; spectators must choose what to believe, and ascertain for

¹⁰ While the pleasures of viewing these shows is widely documented (see especially Holmes and Jerymn,
2003), ironically the contestants themselves often comment how ‘bored’ they are within the Big Brother
House.

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