The Reality of Reality Online

I'm no fan of reality shows but I have friends who think they can learn something about human nature from them. Well, it turns out they are frequently setups: they lie to the contestants about the point of the show (Joe Millionaire contestants were not even told they were competing to marry a rich guy--they thought it was just a vacation); they take shots out of context and put them in other scenes; they redub dialogue; they reshot scenes that they didn't like (okay for fiction, not "reality"--especially when the reshoots are in Griffith Park near LA, not a pacific island); they manipulate players against each other (in one survivor episode, they insisted a woman stop helping a fellow player and do an impromptu interview, then they encouraged teammates to vote her off because she didn't come to his rescue).

Several of the producers justify themselves in the documentary, saying, "Americans KNOW this isn't real, that it's faked. They don't care, they just like to be entertained." Is this true? Decide for yourself.