Contents

Foreword

DEBORAH A. CARMICHAEL

Acknowledgments

Introduction

JULIE ANNE TADDEO AND KEN DVORAK

Part I: Reality TV as Social Experiment

Citizen Funt: Surveillance as Cold War Entertainment

FRED NADIS

From Social Experiment to Postmodern Joke: Big Brother and the Progressive Construction of Celebrity

LEE BARRON

From the Kitchen to 10 Downing Street: Jamie's School Dinners and the Politics of Reality Cooking

JAMES LEGGOTT AND TOBIAS HOCHSCHERF

The Patriotic American Is a Thin American: Fatness and National Identity in The Biggest Loser

CASSANDRA L. JONES

Part II: Class, Gender, and Reimaging of Family Life

Disillusionment, Divorce, and the Destruction of the American Dream: An American Family and the Rise of Reality TV

LAURIE RUPERT AND SAYANTI GANGULY PUCKETT

“The television audience cannot be expected to bear too much reality”: The Family and Reality TV

SU HOLMES

Reality TV and the American Family

LEIGH H. EDWARDS

Shopping, Makeovers, and Nationhood: Reality TV and Women's Programming in Canada

SARAH A. MATHESON

Babes in BonanzaLand: Kid Nation, Commodification, and the Death of Play

DEBBIE CLARE OLSON

Part III: Reality TV and the Living History Experiment

“A Storybook Every Day”: Fiction and History in the Channel 4/PBS House Series

JULIE ANNE TADDEO AND KEN DVORAK

“What about giving us a real version of Australian history?”: Identity, Ethics, and Historical Understanding in Reality History TV

MICHELLE ARROW

Living History in Documentary Practice: The Making of The Colony

AURORA SCHEELINGS

Contributors

Index