WGBH Radio; The Callie Crossley Show

I'm Kelly Crossley and this is the Cali cross-link show. We all know the saying Truth is stranger than fiction. But what could be stranger still is the fiction that's passing for truth. Today there are nearly 1000 reality TV shows from brides dealers to The Bachelor with cutthroat competition materialism and dysfunctional behavior along the way. How are the show shaping us. What happens when the distinction between the public and private. Breaks down when we blur what's real with hyper realism. This hour with media analyst Jennifer Pozner leading the way will discuss her new book which explores how reality TV is affecting our beliefs behavior and culture. From there we kick off a week of conversations marking Hip-Hop history month. Today we meet Cindy Diggs known to locals as mother hip hop year she's been bringing peace to Boston street by way of music. Up next from reality on the small screen to Boston's hip hop scene. First the news. From NPR News in Washington I'm Lakshmi Singh. The House

ethics trial of New York Congressman Charles Rangle is due to resume this hour in Washington. But the embattled Democrats not there. NPR's Paul Brown reports Rangle walked out as lawmakers decided today to deny his request for a delay to find a new lawyer. Ethics Committee chief counsel Blake Chisholm reads off the 13 counts against 80 year old Democrat Charles Rangle count one improper solicitation count two violation of Clause 5 of the code of ethics for government service relating. That's after wrangle who says he spent 2 million dollars on an attorney who then dropped his case pleads for time to find and pay for another lawyer. Fifty He is a public service is on the line. Not necessarily wrangles possible punishments if he's found guilty of fund raising and other violations by a jury of four Republicans and four Democrats could result in a scolding letter or vote. The little more. The Ethics Committee says wrangles known for a month he needed to find a new attorney Paul Brown NPR News Washington.

Prosecutors who ran the failed corruption case against former Alaska senator Ted Stevens will not face criminal contempt charges. Two sources tell NPR the long investigation will end soon. Without any criminal referrals more details from NPR's Carrie Johnson the Justice Department walked away from its 2008 criminal conviction of former Senator Ted Stevens because of problems with how the prosecutor shared evidence. The trial Judge Emmett Sullivan became so upset with the prosecutors that he ordered an investigation into whether they violated the law themselves. Now NPR has learned that investigation will end without any criminal referrals. Two sources say a separate internal investigation by the Justice Department has uncovered some alleged misconduct by an FBI agent and several line prosecutors. But those findings will result in ethics referrals not any criminal trouble. Stevens died this year and prosecutor Nicholas Marsh committed suicide as the investigation near no end. Carrie Johnson NPR News Washington. Retail sales are surging jumping in October to their highest level in

seven months. The increase was fueled by strong demand for new cars. Ken Perkins with a group retail metrics says the report's good news for retailers heading into the holiday shopping season. There's some pent up demand that is built up during October because the weather was warm so November looks to have gotten off to a good start and I think the holiday season the set. Up to be pretty a pretty decent one. Perkins says last month's jump in retail sales was about twice as large as analysts had expected. In another report out today inventories at U.S. businesses rose in September more than economists had expected. At last check on Wall Street the Dow Jones industrial average up 75 points at eleven thousand two hundred sixty eight. This is NPR News. Greece is projecting a higher budget deficit this year after the discovery that last year's debt was larger than previously thought. In a bid to get a European

Union bailout Greece made sweeping budget cuts this year which spurred nationwide protests. Ireland may be next in line to ask the EU for financial help in a bid to avoid the kind of debt crisis that rocked Greece's system. But Teri Schultz reports the Irish government is not confirming reports that it wants a bailout it may be just a matter of time perhaps even hours before Dublin does ask to tap into the emergency fund. Ireland's borrowing costs have gotten so high that it's now considered almost impossible for it to manage without outside cash. The Irish finance minister is expected to ask whether financial assistance could be used to help banks directly considered less politically damaging than a government bailout. EU finance ministers meet in Brussels Tuesday and commission spokesman Amodeo also fight TARDIO says he expects them to be helpful. There is a good will of their European partners to support the efforts of the artificial Tories and the Irish people to redress the fiscal situation. The value of the euro is suffering from the speculation. For NPR News I'm Teri Shultz.

Investigators are on the scene of a deadly high rise building fire in the heart of Shanghai today. At least 42 people were killed and more than 90 injured. A witness says renovation materials caught fire spread to scaffolding and shot through the 28 story building. Dozens of fire trucks rushed to the same. The news agency says the building housed a number of retired teachers. I'm Lakshmi Singh NPR News in Washington. Support for NPR comes from IBM working to help midsize businesses become the engines of a Smarter Planet. Learn more at IBM dot com slash engines. Good afternoon I'm Kelly Crossley and this is the Calla Crossley Show. Today we're talking about how reality television is influencing the way we see ourselves. My guest is Jennifer Pozner. She's a journalist media critic and founder of women in

media and news. Her latest book is Reality Bites Back the troubling truth about guilty pleasure TV. Jennifer Pozner welcome. Hi Kelli thanks for having me. I'm glad to have you. Now listeners before we dive into our conversation we want to hear from you. We're at 8 7 7 3 0 1 89 70. That's 8 7 7 3 0 1 89 70. Do you watch reality TV. What do you get out of it. Do you think these shows are harmful or are they just pure entertainment. Again the number 8 7 7 3 0 1 89 70 8 7 7 3 0 1 89 70. So Jennifer let me start this way and give our audience your bone a few days with regard to this subject matter. You watched thousands and thousands and thousands of hours a reality television tells about it. Well I guess the best way I can say it is that I fell on the sword. I don't know if I I don't know exactly how many I know it was at least more than a thousand hours

over ten years it started with Who Wants to Marry a Multimillionaire in the year 2000 when Fox legally married a woman who was unsuspecting out of after wiggling her down from a Miss America meets mail order bride parade legally married her on air to a guy who all she knew about him was supposedly he was rich turns out not rich but what he lacked in money he made up for in are straining order taken out against him by former girlfriends who he had roughed up and threatened to kill. So when that when that came on the air I thought you know maybe this is a genre that deserves a little bit of a feminist lens here and I started paying attention and I was wondering if what I would see over the course of the decade would play out in the ways that I worried it would would play out as backlash against women and unfortunately it did. With shows like The Bachelor in which you know a harem of network approved women sit around waiting for crumbs from one supposedly

Prince Charming to shows like Flavor of Love which portray people of color as a modern day minstrel shows to wife swap and Super Nanny and Toddlers and Tiaras and we can talk at America's Next Top Model. We can talk about any number of shows but overarching only the genre portrays women as if we are no further intellectually or politically than the 50s. Well one of the things that I want to put into context is you've you made your overarching statement to let people know you're not saying you can't watch a you know bad you. I'm saying that turn your TV off. You want to put it in the context that when you look at these shows you need to understand that they have a larger impact than just kind of mindless entertainment that there are things happening to our culture and our behavior as a result of now what our I printed out the list of reality TV shows 20 pages of shows that's how many there are now so this is mainstream

entertainment in a way that is far reaching and you just want to make the point I'm not telling anybody to give up their guilty pleasure but I understand what's happening. I'm so glad that you brought that up yeah there's an entire chapter toward the end of the book called fun with media literacy and there are reality TV drinking games which I make sure to say people should play with water or juice if they don't want to get alcohol poisoning by the second chapter by the second commercial break I should say. But there are backlash bingo games. The goal here is to analyze what reality TV is trying to sell us in terms of damaging ideas about who we supposedly are. At the turn of the century. But then also help us still have fun watching television and I'm not here to tell you divorce the Real Housewives or dump the bachelor if that's what you enjoy and be like the equivalent of me being the old guy standing on the lawn saying You kids get away from my flat screen and that's not my job as a media analyst. But what is my job as a media critic and a media advocate is to help

people learn how to watch more critically so that they can actively engage with the material. Because when you're not engaging when you're watching passively that's when advertisers and product placement stealth advertisers who promote basically further this genre getcha. OK we have a caller already Jennifer this is great. Excellent. Viet from Cambridge Go ahead please. Hi how are you all. Fine. Right I am. I am really excited about the topic actually because I am an avid reality television viewer and I always get those kind of looks when I explain you know certain shows that I enjoy. And I really really enjoy the conversation so far and I want to just to kind of give my. Input about some specific reality television shows on MTV there's a steerage there's a kind of group of shows called Teen Mom and King and pregnant and these reality

television shows have shown me in a really really particular way it's very moving to watch. It's not you know it's not manipulative but as I was telling the screener I find that the show educates and also in a way prevents is preventative in the sense that kids in teens who watch the show understand the realities of the Singhs that happen when they become pregnant at an early age do not have the emotional capabilities the financial support to take care of a child. So that's on the show it's amazing it's quite amazing. There are there are. Certain couples you know of one couple it's very clear to see that they are emotionally abusing each other physically abusing each other and then on the other hand there are great models of relationships there's there's this couple It's just really touching to watch they are mostly accepting they don't they just model like the best we weave yet we

got to let Jennifer respond Jennifer that's a good good reality TV shows you had said. He's There are lessons to be gotten from the show. What do you think there are there are some that the format of reality television is not the problem it's what producers tends to choose to do with the format that can bring in the bigotries and the regressive social ideas etc. that we see so often so some shows like for example teen mom. Play with the format in a different way. But I would what I would say is that it's not necessarily my sort of concern comes up when I hear anybody saying that any reality show isn't manipulative because what most people don't understand is that reality producers film 100 percent of the time. And they use less than 1 percent of what they shot because they use 1 percent and then that 1 percent is edited. So whatever you're seeing is a very intentionally crafted narrative that

doesn't necessarily reflect the reality of what that person or that community's experience was but rather what the production team has decided they'd like to frame that narrative as. So in the case of teen mom or 16 and pregnant there are some you know really interesting relationship and parenting and. Sort of class issues that come up but we really do have to understand that none of what we're watching on television in the reality format whether it's something that's a little less exploitative like a teen mom because it's aimed at trying to play this sort of social role or something. On the other end of the line the most exploitative shows you can possibly get so you know plastic surgery shows like The Swan or teen baby beauty pageants like Toddlers and Tiaras. No matter which shows you're watching they're all highly crafted and they're not real. Our number is 8 7 7 3 0 1 0 8 0 9 7 8 7 7 3 0 1 89

70. I'm speaking with Jennifer Pozner She's the author of Reality Bites Back the troubling truth about guilty pleasure TV. Something that you raised in the book Jennifer that I have to say I did not know now you're just your last point was that this is highly edited. I think a lot of us may know that. What I didn't know was that they have actual writers that are also writing this stuff in addition to editing it. That's a whole other thing. It seems to me. Oh yeah. Well that's a thing Reality TV is built on a number of big myths. One of them is that there are no writers. There's no script. There's no it's just sort of you know this veneer of authenticity as if these shows are documentaries and that's just not true reality television employs writers story editors crafting not only bits of dialogue but also crafting stories through casting and through editing choices. There's also a tendency to

use a term from an industry practice called Franken by. In which Cali a conversation that you might have with your mother on a Monday might be spliced together with a conversation you might have with your girlfriend or your boyfriend on a Wednesday and then a few words that you might have said to somebody at the office on a Saturday. All of that could be sort of sliced and diced to make it sound like you had one conversation about somebody you were in love with or somebody you wanted to fire or somebody who kicked a dog. And the goal of Franken biting is to change the context the content and the meaning of what somebody has said and done. So whatever we see on screen sometimes we can trust it sometimes we can't because we have no idea what the original purpose or context was. All right. Again we're talking with Jennifer Pozner Reality Bites Back the troubling truth about guilty pleasure TV. We're going to be coming back after the break to take more of your

questions. Callers are lining up. And Jennifer when we come back I want you to address you mentioned documentary. What's the difference between reality TV and documentary. And again what harm does it do if we just watch a little bit of this we'll be taking that up when we come back. Again my guest is Jennifer Pozner our number 8 7 7 3 0 1 8 9 7 3 0 1 89 70. Support for WGBH comes from you and from North Hill in Needham a community with a host of amenities for independent people aged 65 plus and proud to support WGBH North Hill in Needham. Don't just live. Live well. Details at Northville dot org. And from Boston private banking Trust Company Boston private bank provides private and commercial banking and investment management and trust

services to individuals and businesses. You can learn more by visiting Boston private bank dot com and from the 14th annual Boston International fine art show hosting a special evening with ninety nine point five Laura Carlo Friday November 19th from 6 to 9 p.m. at the cyclorama. Info at ninety nine 5 all classical Org before it was understood as PTSD soldiers traumatized in war were described as shell shocked or battle fatigue. It was something no soldier wanted to own up to. You were a coward. You were I'm a lingere or you were somebody that was Macon. Up on the next FRESH AIR we talk with Ellen Bergen John Alpert directors of the new HBO documentary war torn 1861 to 2010. Joining us this afternoon at two on eighty nine point seven WGBH. Hi I'm Brian O'Donovan host of a Celtic soldier ninety nine point seven WGBH and if you haven't done so already I hope you'll reserve your tickets to join me at the 8th anywhere presentation of A Christmas Celtic's this year. The

show is traveling all over New England with performances and Wooster temptin Boston Providence Rhode Island. And Portsmouth New Hampshire purchase your tickets online at WGBH dot org slash. Visit WGBH or to catch the day's news listen to great music and register to win a five night stay in Galway Ireland family donated by 10 and tours. It includes everything from airfare to guided tours learn more at WGBH dot org. My guest is Jennifer Pozner we're talking about how reality TV shapes our beliefs and attitudes. This is the Calla Crossley Show and I'm Kelli Crossley to join the conversation we're at 8 7 7 3 0 1 89 70. That's 8 7 7 3 0 1 89 70. Are these shows a reflection of society. Are we adapting to what we're seeing on screen. That's what the question is right now. But Jennifer before we continue our conversation I want to give our listeners a reminder of what we're talking about when we

say reality TV. Here is ABC reality dating series The Bachelor which brings a pool of prospective love interest to an eligible single man and follows them until he settles on the one. Here's a promo for Season 14. I have noticed certain girls are more affectionate than others the way he comes across as desperate and. Never. Want to come I think. It is getting caught up in the drama with all the other women it's making a really difficult. Problem with the girl. Honestly I think that Allie is really jealous. I don't understand why she isn't. Just in. My home. I know that she's not right for you to have to get down to someone. That's. Going to figure out what it's all next week on The Bachelor. Now I know this is one of your favorites Jennifer Hudson but then how do you define favorites. If you mean one of the shows I spend the most time transcribing over the years well then yes

the promos for the bachelor can get actually even more extreme. Usually it'll have one of the narrators saying hearts will be broken along the way and then you know a couple of clips of women bawling and then but the claws were bound to come out when women are in are competing for one man and then you have cat hissing sounds on ran in the background all of which go to ard framing women as desperate pathetic losers who can never possibly be happy or successful or fulfilled without being chosen by a husband. Any guy. It doesn't have to be a charming or smart or funny or politically savvy or loyal guy even one who's violent as we've seen in many reality shows. And when you say the bachelor is one of my favorites I would say it's one of my most repeated targets because it has so many of these regressive backlash imagery points that I can use it to illustrate so many different things that for

example we've had 20 seasons of The Bachelor including the bachelor at 14 bachelors six bachelorettes how many of those stars do you imagine were not white. Oh none Oh come on. Yeah. Yes that's right. Every single bachelor and every single Bachelorette were white and Cali could get this the 15th bachelor. They apparently scoured the entire country and decided Well clearly this was never even a question but apparently they decided not one Asian African-American or Latino or Arab-American man could possibly be Prince Charming so they are bringing back a white guy who they had all the bachelor in a previous season who didn't actually find somebody. So they're giving him a second chance so they've had 42 white paddlers and now they're having the 15th is a. Thank you for this. Hope springs eternal for these guys I guess I mean it's just Corey's word but if it were Mr. what Mr. Wright must be why exactly.

Now before we take because they're lined up here I do want you to address the difference between reality TV and documentary. Somebody says I mean you've just explained it they're manipulating manipulating here but in a documentary you cast people as well and you attempt to show the reality of what's going on. But the huge difference for you would be well in ethical documentary. Yes there's all all documentary just as in journalism you interview sources and you can't use everything that you find. But in ethical documentary you're looking for the sort of the kernels of truth as you see them and you're trying to be honest in the way you portray people and communities and situations with reality television it's the exact opposite. You're casting for type and then you're editing that type into stock characters and you're manipulating the situations so that you can get the results that you want. Whereas documentary is trying if it's ethical to beam out to the public what a situation truly is. OK so for example

just is it OK if I give you an example of a difference. Sure. So with reality television many of these cast members are kept in houses where they're kept in conditions that would make a psych psych ops intelligence officer proud they're cut off from the outside world. They are not allowed to have communication with friends and family unless it's recorded. No TV no radio no internet no newspapers no magazines. They're kept under fed. But there's tons of alcohol to keep them off balance. Sleep deprivation. When you put that all together the people are kept off kilter at any given moment. The more easily to turn them into these stock characters of the bitch the slut the angry black woman the douche bag guy the gangster guy. And those are the kinds of things that come up over and over the kinds of tropes that come up over and over. And so the difference between documentary is you do five documentaries you have five different subjects you do five different reality shows you see the same characters same people same quotes over and over and over again.

All right. We're going to call Jeff from Framingham Go ahead please. Hi there and thanks for taking my call. I really like the subject but I wanted to put in a couple of things. I've been a director and a videographer. And as for reality shows or real people they don't exist. So if you point a camera at somebody the whole situation changes the configuration changes and they become an actor or an actress. And so you don't really get. Except in perhaps when the situation is so profound and disturbing you get even anybody in acting just quote unquote normal. The problem with that is that it adds another dimension to television distortion of reality so that people when they see news when they see real things happening it all comes to play on the

same plateau. And I remember during the Vietnam War when they showed stuff on TV the horrors of it. It got people angry when McCarthys brought bring down. It was when he was on TV. I don't get your point. I see where you're going here Jeff I'm going to let Jennifer respond. One last thing I'd love to hear how she sees it affecting our behavior. Well that's what that's where we're going right now. Yes. Jennifer please talk about how all of this is affecting our behavior. Well I one of the things that I would really love to see this book sort of spark is serious sociological and viewer reception research so that we can actually point to real data to say how these shows are affecting our behavior we don't really know in terms of data how it's affecting But in terms of my experience my anecdotal experience I'll be very clear to just you know disclaim it that way.

I've done lectures and workshops with high school students college students youth groups since the early part of the decade. And. I've seen a real change in the critical responses of young people to these shows when they first started participating in these workshops. Reality TV had been on the air for a year two years three years they hadn't grown up with it and their responses were very critical they asked questions like Do they really want they really expect us to believe that women are so stupid or do they really think that it's OK to portray people of color like this or you know is that it's and they'd laugh they'd laugh at the expectation that we were supposed to think that this is real. Nowadays I get totally different responses from young people who have grown up with 10 years of this as their formative entertainment experiences and they say instead of oh my god I'm so shocked at the kind of exploitation that we're seeing on America's Next Top Model Now they say do you think I could lose weight

enough to be cast on Top Model. Now they say you know well it's just the women's fault for going on The Bachelor and it's not at all anything about what the producers are choosing to tell us is important or valuable for women. So I think our critical filters over time are getting sort of lulled into complacency and that's exactly what advertisers want to have happen this year. It is exists today not because of supply and demand we've heard that you've heard that Cali right there just giving us what we want. More people want to watch it so there is more shows like it right. And that's a big big Brit lie. These shows exist for one reason. They are dirt cheap to produce. They can cost 50 to 75 percent less to make a reality show than a scripted show and that's before they sell hundreds of thousands of dollars sometimes millions of dollars per ep per series in product placement and those advertisers in exchange for that money get to sit down with producers and collaborate

on who gets cast how stories play out and what the goals are. And in a Jon are driven by this kind of advertising that means the whole show's often function as infomercials. So we're when we watch passively that's what they want. They want us to take in their ideas and their products passively so that we're more receptive to their lifestyle to their persuasion to their idea that you know consumption is the only way to be happy and a good citizen and. Why is that problematic. Well you know look at all that research over the years about how women self esteem gets affected by looking at print advertising now we don't have to look at just a static print ad we can have an entire season of America's Next Top Model giving us those same ideas. Yes you point out in your book that there have been many studies that look at the impact of women's magazines on on on women self esteem and that is documented. So probably some of that will be turn to looking at these critical issues in in reality shows as well I just want to know because you talked about the

stock the product placement in case people are wondering well where is product placement on for example on American Idol you'll see coke everywhere as they're doing the auditions on Project Runway One of my personal favorites. There are more overt about it in that Tim Gunn will say please use the piper line assess the reason and I'll go to the L'Oreal makeup room so you know that that's product placement but more often than not you just see the products and the close ups are there so that you understand that they're trying to sell the products to you in addition to selling the show. All right we're going to take a another call and we've got Jay from Warrick Rhode Island Go ahead please. Doing fine. Yeah almost out of a Q2 of reality TV as an artist that's pretty funny and cool to go with what happened. Really that's not really what happened. What they showed. It really hurt me I was really upset. Even now I think about it I get really upset because the only voice out of key. Drop the guitar

down and you know so. So it wasn't reality right. Yeah it's not reality. I think you know they just chose to lead people and not real silly people they don't mind being on TV. But when you're a serious artist and you go on and then they make a silly person out of you then you really go into shock I was like totally shocked my family was like but now I'm just talking about it gets me nervous because I'm not like that when I'm on states thing and put people in stuff like I make a living as an entertainer so it's kind of shocking but still people like you know you won all I can say that I don't think I don't know like a deck of I'm supposed to say you know what I'm going to sign the contract thing to me you know because they're like you know Les you have your good you're going to you know I went through as an A-list act you know so you know you know they're not going to do that to get you but because you're the fastest I know that's something they can run with. So it's like they're going to show you the Dean says look I'm still in this Elisabetta suspects tell the truth was I was really tired and I was upset to be there because of some of the

things that went on backstage I didn't like so I was like I had a little bit of an attitude. That's why it was you know I thought quick. I understand. Jay thanks very much for your call. That's a real clear example of what often happens to people who are participants in these shows right Jennifer. That's absolutely true and I find it so sad that he feels he can't even talk in specifics about the show that he was on that he feels misrepresented him so specifically and so negatively because of the draconian contracts they make people sign it's true that in many ways these shows have created a chilling effect where participants don't feel they can talk to the press or they can talk to the public to explain how very unreal it is behind the scenes and how her face and and her. Yes exactly how hurtful. So the thing that I would say is when we as listeners hear Jay say look they I'm a

serious person and they made me into somebody silly. But all those other silly people it's fine for them to go on the show. We need to understand we don't know anything about any of the people we've seen on the shows we don't know some of them might be silly some of them might be trashy but some most of them we have no idea they could be Mensa candidates for all we know and all of their intelligent moments get left on the cutting room floor. We have no way to know because these shows are fundamentally dishonest the production work the story editing the Franken biting the casting for type that all happens off screen. We are not privy to it so we never get to know. Now we are talking a day after Sarah Pailin premier and her reality show. And later on this week her daughter is on another reality show Dancing With The Stars. Sarah Palin's reality show Sarah Palin's Alaska. And I mention both of those just to say how intra Goldie shows are now to almost everybody's life I mean Sarah Palin

as a potential presidential candidate and. You know there is her daughter by virtue of being related to her who is a part of a show that's pretty popular. I mean these are we headed to a place where this is going to be what television entertainment is. Well because of the media economics that I was mentioning before but underneath this genre these shows are not going anywhere they're eating up more and more of the primetime lineup both on network and on cable television. The the Sarah Palin show is a little bit of a I'm interested to see it I was on the road traveling wasn't able to see it last night I do plan to write about it. It's going to be my guess is a little bit different from most reality shows in that most reality participants don't get to control their images at all. As I wrote in the book pale and I would be extremely surprised if Palin didn't have behind the scenes production. You know her hands in how the images would be unrolled and assuming she does control some of the production end.

It almost feels doesn't it inevitable that she would have ended up with a reality show because this is a candidate who in 2008 wanted to control every possible aspect of how she was portrayed and appeared in news media going so far as to have her campaign yell at and cut off journalists who wouldn't quote unquote show her deference. So here we have her going to TLC which is going to allow her to basically roll out this me and my family are just down home folks just like you and everybody else in middle America and all of our mama grizzly is are here to you know protect America except that we're also going to show you lots of hunting and we're going to kill the mama grizzlies. We know what the deal is where you say you're a mama grizzly and mama grizzlies are extremely dangerous but you want us to vote for mama grizzlies. And then also on our show we're going to kill him. I think the most important thing you said about our show though is that she is controlling that content and

that is a really critical piece and I hadn't thought about that but I think you're exactly right. And that is important I think because all of the rest these people including J whom we just talked to have no control over how they are presented out here to the public and that in fact is not reality. So it may not be reality for her either but at least she gets to say you know what am I going to look like in the end. Right and the implications I mean think about the implications of a potential presidential candidate controlling an entire quote unquote reality series in which they get to flout you know we have campaign finance laws we have equal we have laws that govern how political advertising plays out. Now instead this is going to be of course political advertising it's just political advertising in a new format and John or that gets around those those policies right. Well that's a that's a good point though I have to say I don't think that many other political candidates are that interesting. So that might be. I want to take another call here

Jennifer. Monique for Providence Go ahead please. Hi I'm so glad that you guys are in the subject matter because I know I'm a clinical social worker and ally and entertain honestly with young girls all the time and I really see reality television as an urgent problem and a way that it's just destroying the identities and the self esteems of girls. And I mean I the course I'm guilty of watching that myself and and I feel and I just I honestly do feel guilty and I you know self analyze and I realize that the reason why I do just do this do it is because I'm so fascinated by human behavior. And I like to see what motivates people to do insane and think the way they do. But my question about this is is why with women signing on to this so avidly and also works with the school stripper culture that becomes so honest.

Thanks very much that's an excellent question Jennifer. You know there are a lot of different reasons why people sign onto the shows. Increasingly as they've become more and more popular and fewer scripted shows are available many people see this as their route you know aspiring actors see this is their route into the business. So a lot of the people are using their real names but playing characters as they do it other people a lot of the time class plays into it. Women are told that you know you're going to be. Whisked off to exotic locations you're going to get to wear designer gowns and millions of dollars worth of product placement jewelry and you're going to be taken care of Whereas a lot of low income women that's a huge set of luxuries that they don't ever have to get to experience in their daily lives so that's one element. Another is more specific to low income women and that's desperation. We are in a country now that has fewer and fewer opportunities

educationally economically especially for young women especially for young women of color especially for young mothers. And so you'll see on American Idol you'll see on America's Next Top Model repeatedly playing up the quote unquote sob stories of poor women who have kids and work at you know the Piggly Wiggly or Wal-Mart or the Dairy Queen in their local towns and say things like. Winning American Idol I just know winning American My idol is my only shot at a better life. Winning America's Next Top Model will let me take care of my daughter. It's cetera and they play The Producers plight up the path those of these women and their poverty and they make and they do it to poke fun at them they do it to make fun of them. The idea that this woman who clearly doesn't sing well thinks she has the ability to get her kid out of poverty just by you know belting out the Star-Spangled Banner and then she sings off key and we all laugh at her. And then we see her walking down the street with her toddler

trailing after her as Ryan Seacrest makes jokes. I mean it's so sadistic and elitist in ways that no one really pays much attention to so that's one of the. And what ends up was the impact on us as viewers when we see that. You know I think that that it there's a level of empathy that we're starting to lose. I think we've been talking a lot. You know we've been talking a lot about bullying in the news in the last month or so especially pegged to all of the recent suicides by gay teenagers which in of itself is nothing new it's just that we're finally paying attention to the suicide rate of gay teens. But we've been talking about bullying. And I think glad that we're having a conversation in public debate about that but we need to also extends that conversation to the way that shows like The Real Housewives shows like The Bachelor shows like Flavor of Love shows like Jersey Shore enhance and glorifying glamorize the concept of bullying especially among women where where you have

over and over the narrative of people saying things like I know better than to trust women. Women are all catty bitches. And then you know screaming and yelling at each other and backstabbing and you're a gold digger and you're a slut and data because for just a second Jennifer I want to let our listeners hear the Real Housewives of New Jersey following what yes as far as the lives of five women and wealthy New Jersey communities and in this scene Danielle and Teresa are trying to cool off during a reunion show from a slapping match. Checking to see if she tried to. Carry. Back and listen to me too that listen to me. You can't get off the can we me I will hit her you know she's not your hair. I don't care but I don't want to get off the couch and there you have it. Yeah I mean and it's the the woman who just called the The social worker I think she is very right this is an urgent problem because when we see these these crafted manipulative dishonest depictions

of what is supposedly but is not the plurality of Americans it's women's experiences package to us as real and we see that for a decade. We can't help but start to at least subconsciously. Change our perceptions of who women are. And if you knew nothing about American women and nothing about people of color other than what you saw in reality television you would think the women's movement never happened. You would think the civil rights movement never happened. You would think that at the turn of this at this time in 2010 women want nothing more than to be basically you know June Cleaver meets Miss America meets you know Pam Anderson and you'd think that people of color that it was still somehow appropriate to consider men of color nothing more than criminals thugs and clowns and buffoons and women of color nothing more than hyper sexual ignorance violent itching for a fight. Chicks who are called Ghetto hoes. This is so not where we are as a as a country. We've moved beyond that

in so many ways but reality TV is telling us we have and it's Mad Men without the cool clothes. Yeah. So when you ask about the impact how can it not impact not only our perceptions but eventually our public policy. Well. Jennifer you're absolutely correct the last lines of your book say television can be fun for thought and yes a source of much pleasure guilty or otherwise. And when it's not that's your cue to bite back. So thank you very much for this conversation. We've been talking about reality television with my guest Jennifer Pozner. She's a journalist media critic and founder of women in media and news. Her new book is Reality Bites Back the troubling truth about guilty pleasure TV. You can catch her this Friday at the Wellesley Booksmith at 7 p.m. and on Saturday at 7 p.m. at the tritone bookseller and cafe on Newbury Street. For more information visit our website. Up next it's our regular Monday feature local made good with Mother hip hop Cyndi digs. Stay with us.

Support for WGBH comes from you. And from Citizens Bank. We believe that good citizenship is good business. It's a simple philosophy with a profound impact. You can learn more at Citizens Bank dot com slash good banking. Good banking is good citizenship. And from Elsa Dorfman Cambridge portrait photographer. Still clicking with the jumbo format Polaroid 20 by 24 analog camera and original Polaroid film. Online at Elsa Dorfman dot com. That's Elsa Dorfman dot com. And from your New England Toyota dealer. Celebrating 10 years and three generations of the technologically advanced nature inspired Toyota Prius hybrid. You can learn more at by a Toyota dot com. Next time on the world's most Pakistanis identify themselves as Muslim. But there are deep differences. It's one brand of Islam to stand for and swim by. That has been

at the heart of a lot of the conflict urban a modern and worldly isolated traditional and tribal understanding Pakistan. Next time on the world. Coming up at 3:00 here on eighty nine point seven WGBH. When you visit WGBH dot org right now you can catch up on the day's news listen to a variety of great music and register to win an incredible five night city stay for two. Days. Go away Ira. Kindly donated by 10 and tours. This trip includes lush accommodations at the seven point apartments guided tours of some of the always most visited sites and a traditional Irish breakfast to help kick start every day. Enter the drawing and learn more about the trip at WGBH dot org. We're running out of oxygen. I have so many people that I can trade the world and it's not an easy decision for anyone to make. Coming up at 3 o'clock on an eighty nine point seven WGBH Boston NPR station for news and culture.

Do you think. We. Can make. Men. Can change. The economic. Times how we falsely and this is the kallah costly show. We're listening to start piece by four peaks a group made up of local hip hop legends. The track was released in 2007 as part of the start peace movement initiated by my guest Cindy did so. Cindy Diggs is this week's Local may good our regular Monday feature where we celebrate people who bring honor to New England and November is hip hop Appreciation Month and we're marking it all week long in these parts in new digs known as Mother hip hop. She's a community activists and founder of peace Boston which uses hip hop music as a way to bring peace to city streets and he digs. Welcome. Thank you. Thank you that's a great song. And you know I didn't realize it was from your group. I have heard it but I didn't connect it to this initiative. Yes that's one of the highlights of the piece in the street CD that we have. Well first tell us about start piece and then we'll go back and find out how we got to

this point. OK. Well start piece is the design on the T-shirt that we initiated the movement with. And then of course you heard the song and we turned this whole thing into the peace Boston movement and it's a movement that we started on December 21st 2005 to address the violence in the city of the streets of Boston. Now well before that however you were you know your community activist and you started working with local hip hop artists who were getting a lot of attention and play in the market here. Tell us about them. OK well that was an organization that I started back in 1995 and December and it started off with us putting together an entertainment convention called Can We Talk to you. And we knew that there were a lot of local artists in the city that really like you said weren't getting exposure but they weren't very educated in the industry that they were trying to be a part of so we had this convention where we had a number of people come from New York and other cities to be able to speak to them from the music industry distribution companies and

showing them how to write their contracts or read their contracts and just get them exposed through the distribution companies with marketing campaigns and that sort of thing. So the business part of the business aspect of. And then we had a lot of artists that would perform in front of record labels back when you could be discovered by the record labels and it was a great convention that we put on for four years. And your point was to try to get those these local artists because across the country hip hop is a cultural movement was happening. I mean it kicked off in the late 70s and people were into it in all of those artists were being held up. But right here locally nothing. I mean I remember right we had a couple of local superstars like the ones that were on the CD the song that you just heard that oh gee of course that would be in the Bulldogs and then twice that was the artist that's on that song as well from the Made Man Group so they were getting a lot of national and international exposure but a lot of the other

very talented artists were just known here in the city. And so tell us about us making moves together because this sort of all came together you were first trying to get these hip hop artists to understand the business part and understand the marketing part and to get the recognition they deserved and then you started to pull this together from a community aspect as well. Well we definitely had to do it from a community aspect because a lot of what was happening back in the 90s was a lot of gang violence and the older generation so a lot of the rappers and people in the industry were having problems with one another so we created this concept. Make the most for was a family so in order for you to be able to perform on our stages you have to support your brother or sister who was on stage before you so that helped a lot because we would have meetings with the artists ahead of time and listen to the content of their music and really talk to them in front of one another so that they got to know one another more than oh that's that guy in the show or letting them realize that while he may be somebody

that you know from the block but he's also a deejay and you need him to play your music and that sort of thing so that they got along with one another and we put together what was known as meet and greets and tastemakers with another group out of Springfield will be our promotions had put on these events called tastemakers for us to have music played in front of deejays and invited the artist and that sort of thing so that they could get used to what the industry was like outside of Boston for them to see how it was done professionally. Now for a lot of people you know a number of my listeners will think well if I hear the term hip hop it just means gangsta rap to me which has a very negative connotation and hip hop is actually much bigger than even music its fashion its its culture its a lot of other things going on and music is a part of that. So here you have a situation where you're trying to bring people together so to help them to help them use their talents in service of keeping peace in town. Most definitely.

And that was I mean that's an innovative way of using it and you know we hear about the charity concerts from rappers doing this and that but this is a different thing you're talking about really very much a movement here and a part of Tina Jerry's Louis Brown Peace Institute. Definitely. We started peace Boston to enhance the work of the Peace Institute. I'm a youth worker and have been for the past 10 years and we had started off by wanting to work with young people to teach them how to be the like. Their parents were earlier whether they were rappers or what have you. And then right around 2004 the young people started killing one another so we needed to shift gears. But try to work in the same. Use some of the same techniques that we use with their dads to be able to put on shows and get them involved in other things. Alternatives to violence. So with that we put on a lot of different shows for the young people we raise money through putting on events with adults to be able to raise money for the young people to have their shows where they would otherwise not

be able to have these shows for lack of funding. In the city a lot of our programs and youth work have been cut due to the monies going off to the war and that sort of thing and you know the agency is closing or what have you but still having these big programs that would be greatly missed by the young people if we didnt help them. Now Cindy somebody said that you have been to every funeral of a young person killed by violence in Boston or are close to it. So you know about why this is important what's the impact of these these songs and these programs with these kids. Well if you listen to some of the music that's on the commercial radio stations a lot of it is negative and they don't see any hope in that or the music that we play or have on our CD is local. So there are people that they know or they've heard of that are talking about things that they know about. So it's not something that's happening nationally that

you'll hear on the radio this is something where they mention the streets that these kids grow up on oh they went to school with and just. Having gone to so many funerals I just decided that we can't keep burying young people. I can't look into the casket of a young person anymore. So we're moving on to the live in peace campaign because we're having too many people just think that resting in peace is OK. We have got to stop that tradition of having that be the place that young people go to socialize. They go into the next funeral that's where they're going to see their friends that and I work with young people every day. And I've heard them tell us well miss as soon as we get over this one funeral three months later the wounds are opened again because we've lost another friend and to see them walk around with the rest in peace memorial buttons and have multiple buttons. I mean when I was a kid we wore Michael Jackson buttons we didn't have to deal with that if someone passed away that was young was because they had an illness not because they had

been murdered. How does it make you feel Cindy to be you know look in the face of these kids and to know that you're making some some inroads there. Because if you say they can hear their streets in the music they can make a connection with the people performing the music. Well it's a great feeling and just having worked with young people for so long and just working. In addition to my day job I also do community work with the young people and I was teaching a radio class teaching young people how to write and host their own positive radio shows and I wear purple all the time as the international call of peace that the Peace Institute taught us about. And just to see in the beginning that the kids were you know rough and tough their eighth graders and then by the middle of the class they were all wearing purple They were purple pen or purple book. And just you know well miss you know just to see them thinking differently. One of my first classes was through the Citizen Schools. I had young people in my class that

went really into peace or anything like that and then when I would have them have these discussions about what was happening in their schools their classmate would look over to them saying is that you. Is that you talking. And they said well you know what this class really makes me think so. A lot of times young people don't have anybody to talk to about what's happening. And it's just normalized so it's just OK well someone got shot today and they just keep them over and so I think that was done to see some change in that in. When I go to work at Boston Medical Center I wear purple there and young people ask me all some wish of purple you know and what's going on today I don't see any purple. Well certainly this song is fabulous for peace song it's fabulous it's very catchy and you're listening to it because as I said I've heard it and didn't realize what the lyrics were saying and I'm then you start to hear the lyrics you know in the second or third hearing which is very important and you get a little bit of a message to them in that way. I'm sure they were just

listening and snapping fingers and the next thing you know you're you're taking away what you what you meant for them to hear. Definitely definitely because a lot of times you'll listen to young people singing songs on the bus or wherever. And the lyrics are just so negative so if we can get them to be saying those type of lyrics and other songs that are on the CD it's actually a double CD with. Probably about 45 tracks on it. So there's a lot of positive music that we know where can we get it well with the Lewiston brown piece since in 2008 and we have a number of styles for peace that sell those things for us as well. OK well we're going to go out on the track start piece by 4 piece a group made up of local hip hop legends in the track was released in 2007 as part of the start peace movement initiated by my guest Sandy Diggs who's also this week's Local made goods and we're going to be talking about hip hop music all this week and it's positiveness. Thank you so much and a great thank you. You can keep on top of the Calla Crossley Show at WGBH

dot org slash Calla Crossley follow us on Twitter. Become a fan of the Kalak Rossley show on Facebook. This is the Calla Crossley Show where production of WGBH radio Boston NPR station for news and culture. Now. We need you she never knew you was wrong.