Reality TV as a moral laboratory: A dramaturgical analysis of The Golden Cage

Abstract

Public debates on reality television often address the display of emotion and immoral conduct. Television scholars have recently proposed that while reality television offers its audience an opportunity to learn valuable lessons, they rarely address the issue of the morality of the genre. In this contribution, we analyze the display of emotion and immoral conduct in the Dutch reality show The Golden Cage. Reality television is viewed as constituting a 'moral laboratory'. The question guiding our research revolved around the kind of exercise this moral laboratory provides for. A dramaturgical study of the display of actions and emotions as part of participant "projects" (Beckerman, 1979) was used to answer this question. Results indicate that moral issues and emotions were continuously at stake, and immoral conduct appeared to be coupled with pleasurable emotions. It is concluded that the laboratory of The Golden Cage is at least equally suited for exercising autonomy and identity performance under competitive pressure as it is for the simulation of moral conflicts.

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“…Among different television genres, reality TV, due to its ubiquitous and excessive emotional displays, has also become the object of academic discussion. Researchers have examined the distinctive ways of producing emotions in reality shows (Krijnen and Tan, 2009; Mast, 2016); the affective power of reality TV in creating intimacy across space and time (Kavka, 2008); its relationship with the (re-)production of gender difference (Gorton, 2009) and class relations (Skeggs, 2012; Wood and Skeggs, 2011); and the audiences’ negotiation of the emotions performed and exhibited in reality shows (Töpper, 2021). The genre as such can be understood as an ‘affect generator’ (Reckwitz, 2017) that produces, intensifies, circulates and stores affects, and provides audiences with various opportunities for ‘affective media practices’ (Lünenborg et al, 2021).…”