Lessons from project runway: part 2

While Simpson eventually turned his car around and headed home after about 5 hours of being tailed, it was a historic moment that stopped the whole of America in its tracks. The subsequent arrest of the suspect and the media-frenzy of the ensuing trial only made things crazier. The dawn of the new age of reality television had begun.

It’s hard to understand the impact this event had on the viewing public at the time but it was electrifying to see a police chase involving a huge celebrity, for an alleged double-murder, unfolding in real time. The ubiquitous overhead shot is now done all the time in series like ‘COPS’ or ‘America’s Most Wanted’, so in a way this original television moment is somehow diminished by the passage of time, but OJ was the first! Back then in the mid nineties the sheer quantity of media and public attention about the scandal had Hollywood producers sitting up straight. So it’s not much of a stretch to see how we now have a veritable smorgasbord of OJ style, history-making-made-for-tv-moments to sample in the form of the do or die of winner vs loser in the form of such shows as American Idol, Project Runway, X-Factor etc...

The ever-popular Survivor for example, has spawned a deluge of game-based reality shows. Most of these feature a dizzying array of humanity who are willing to subject themselves to a uncertain amount of personal humiliation in the quest to win money, fame, prizes, power or all of these. It can be a depressing concept and, I might say, equally depressing viewing, witnessing the back-sniping and derogatory name calling, the outright bullying, the devastating tactics of exclusion and often plain deception, all from one’s sofa. Competition has been given a kind of post-Darwinian makeover in this winner-takes-all world.

“We are asked to consider the difficulties and necessities of making alliances, how they work or why they fail.”

Some psychologists theorise that it’s very much in our DNA to be curious about such situations. We understand about responsibility by watching someone else being socially rejected by a group for not pulling their weight or for making a bad decision. We can learn how, as social creatures, we survive best in a group by muting our individual needs to the needs of the group. We learn the penalties for transgression. We are asked to consider the difficulties and necessities of making alliances, how they work or why they fail. And we also consider whom, if anyone, we would choose to be in an alliance with!

On balance, it could be that reality shows provide a key to understanding ourselves as both a species and in a cultural context. Prior to the plethora of available viewing options, competitive behavior was mostly shown in terms of sports (pretty much every kind of sport and then international events such as The Olympics etc) or brains / luck (game shows). Since then, as celebrity life became more available through an increase in media, the viewing public became more fascinated with knowing the details of the lives of various public figures and entertainment personalities. It is often referred to as the ‘age of celebrity’ (Grace Coddington explains it perfectly in terms of the covers of VOGUE in The September Issue), but perhaps post Jade Goody, it would be more accurately referred to as the ‘age of reality’.

In depicting people who are forced together while at the same time being pitted against one another, the shows make clear the base levels of engagement that we are frequently still engaged in, in order to be better, wealthier, more well fed than the person next to us. Reality bites indeed.

The reunion show is another version where the producers bring back together all the contestants at the end of the competition. But what strikes me about such gatherings is there is more often than not a winner who claims to be a really nice person at heart, but who unfortunately just had to be a truly nasty one in order to win.

Which brings me to Project Runway. At least in this show there is skill and creativity on display. And while occasionally there is hubris, quite often humility and camaraderie is evident among the contestants. Sometimes they even help each other to finish garments in a tight finish to a challenge. They usually hug each other after leaving a particularly harsh critique. And contestants often seem genuinely sorry to see each other leave. So that makes it far more pleasant to watch. There’s also the sense that there could be a benefit to their career. It’s not always that way but it certainly beats the sheer nastiness of Survivor!

Proving once and for all that even if you lose, you can still be a winner.

Photographer: Anthea Paul