Page 173 - Critical Theories of Mass Media

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with topics ranging from cooking to property-buying overseas. Celeb-
rity frequently plays an important role as seen in the rise of celebrity
chefs and the prominence of recognizable presenters in exotic
locales (Dunn 2006). The ‘urgent human concerns’ of cultural
exchange and sociable eating remain avoided as travel for the vast
majority grows more predictably homogeneous and fewer people
than ever before actually cook at home themselves.
In cultural populism, specific differences in format and content
provide the basis for the academic study of precise modes of
reception and active audience interpretations. In marked contrast,
critical theory argues that the most important feature of these
formats is their essential similarity. Whatever apparent particularity
and differences can be found, only exist to be effectively and
profitably subsumed by a defining cultural climate of commodifica-
tion and trivialization. The dominant, shared quality of all the
various celebrity and non-celebrity, talent and non-talent-based Banal-
ity TV forms is the pacification of ‘urgent human concerns’ within
the media’s domineering tele-frame of formulaic predictability. For
example, underlying the ‘natural’ and seemingly spontaneous inter-
views of chat shows is an underlying commercialism. Invariably the
interview is linked to a plug for a recent or forthcoming project
whether it be a book, movie or album. Banality TV also frequently
involves voyeuristic, non-seductive emotional money shot (see below)
derived from watching contestants/interviewees compete to expose
themselves both figuratively and literally. The main difference
between the celebrity and non-celebrity versions is largely limited to
their differing ability to utilize their revelations for commercial gain.
To the extent that non-celebrities can do so successfully, they may
become either celetoids (the forgotten past winners of Big Brother-
type shows) or celebrities in their own right (for example, the
remembered winner of 2002’s Big Brother 3 – Jade Goody). Unpre-
dictability does exist to the extent that it is not always possible to
predict in advance who will successfully make the transition, but the
defining, systematic commercial framework within which such
maneuvers take place exists as a highly sophisticated form of
Adorno’s culture industry.
Illustrating Adorno’s emphasis upon the rise of the general at the
expense of the particular, an important aspect of Reality TV’s
banality stems from the fact that, in both celebrity and non-celebrity
elimination programmes, the general format tends to be more
important than the characters themselves. Fascination over trivial
details is then normalized through the cumulative effect of further
programmes consisting of edited highlights, post-programme discus-
sions, and extended live feeds that, in the extended coverage of Big
Brother by UK cable television channel, E4, includes the opportunity

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