Millennials and Gen Z have grown up expecting to see their identities, values, and struggles represented on series as ostensibly apolitical as Big Brother and Dancing With the Stars. For more than a generation now, reality stars have played as central a role in debates around how Americans should live as any cable-news pundit or newspaper columnist.
A STORY OF SEASONS ROM TV
As early as the ’90s, reality TV was confronting third-rail issues like racism, LGBTQ rights, abortion, homelessness, and AIDS-and that was just in the first three seasons of The Real World. Read more: The 50 Most Influential Reality TV Seasons of All Timeīut he was hardly the first to politicize the genre. And Trump, the consummate reality star, brought the medium’s guiding principles-conflict, chaos, and public humiliation-to the West Wing In a 2016 interview that the critic James Poniewozik highlights in his book Audience of One: Trump, Television, and the Fracturing of America, a former supervising editor of The Apprentice explained the show’s aim: “Make Trump look good, make him look wealthy, legitimate.” Well, it worked. To state the obvious, reality TV also restored the cultural capital and catalyzed the political rise of our 45th President.
Without the Real Housewives, the Kardashian-Jenner clan, and the Selling Sunset cast, the pages of gossip rags would be virtually blank. While Project Runway launched Christian Siriano into the fashion stratosphere, Guy Fieri honed his everyman-gourmand persona on The Next Food Network Star. West Side Story best supporting actress Oscar winner Ariana DeBose began her Broadway career following a stint on So You Think You Can Dance. Reality stars have penetrated every corner of the entertainment industry, from Harry Styles, Kelly Clarkson, and Cardi B on the pop charts (appearing on The X Factor, American Idol, and Love & Hip Hop: New York, respectively) to Jennifer Hudson, Laverne Cox, and Emma Stone in Hollywood (first seen on Idol, I Want to Work for Diddy, and VH1’s In Search of the Partridge Family). It has made many people extremely rich Kim Kardashian has a net worth of $1.8 billion. Reality TV has radically altered the landscapes of celebrity, politics, and power.
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