Real(ity) Wisdom

Last time I was home, I got caught up in an MTV marathon of one of my favorite TV shows: “America’s Next Top Model.” For those unfamiliar with the phenomenon that is ANTM, the show is supermodel Tyra Banks’s sometimes-sadistic “modeling” competition (it’s judged more on personality than pictures), which professes to seek the next great model—a young girl who invariably disappears after winning.

My mother, after observing me waste away hours every day watching cycles—“Top Model” has cycles, not seasons (and with a dozen girls trapped in a house together for months, the menstruation jokes write themselves)—asked me how I could possibly find entertainment in reality TV I’d already seen.

Past “Top Model” cycles, I said, are like good mystery novels: After you know who did it, you have to read it again. Watching Cycle Four from the beginning for the umpteenth time, I could look for clues to reveal how Naima went from being the quiet, faux-hawked dancer no one seemed to notice to Top Model. (Incidentally, she recently had to quit a waitressing job because she got recognized too often while pouring her customers’ coffee. Sad.)

Naima’s was a familiar course to victory: Along with Naima, Yoanna (Cycle Two), Nicole (Cycle Five), and Danielle (Cycle Six) were all upper-middle of the pack contestants who survived well into the season before rising to the top as their more boisterous and inconsistent competitors fell by the wayside. The same has happened in the biggest reality competition of all time: American Idol. Kelly Clarkson, winner of American Idol’s first season, and Jordin Sparks, winner of the last, both followed the narratives of non-frontrunners who broke out big near the end.

Watching these shows imparts a valuable lesson about decoding and participating in a social world: We all are constantly creating narratives for ourselves. Steven Berlin Johnson observed the cognitive value of reality TV in his book Everything Bad is Good For You: “As each show discloses its rules and conventions, and each participant reveals his or her personality traits and background, the intrigue in watching comes from figuring out how the participants should best navigate the environment that’s been created for them.” Watch closely, watch often, and patterns start to emerge.

But the benefits of shows like “Top Model” and “American Idol” (and lots of others, from Survivor to Project Runway) offer more than just the flexing of our cognitive muscles. They teach us lessons about which kind of narratives are successful—and which aren’t. Successful narratives include the under-the-radar talent (like the girls described above), the obnoxious enfant terrible who eventually softens (Eva on “Top Model” Cycle Three, Christian on this season’s “Project Runway”), and the early star who falls only to rise again (CariDee, “Top Model” Cycle Seven). And we begin to see these patterns not only on TV, but also in politics, in the workplace, and even in the classroom.

I’ve spotted a few trends watching these shows over and over (and over) about what narratives don’t work: First, the early frontrunners never live up to expectations in the end. Melinda Doolittle, third-place finisher on “Idol” Season Six, was so talented that the judges began referring to her as the competition’s “consummate pro.” “Consummate pro” doesn’t quite make for an appealing Cinderella story, nor is it ever possible to live up to great early performances; she was eventually beaten by Jordin Sparks, for whom expectations were lower. Melinda Doolittle is an awful lot like Hillary Clinton, the long-assumed eventual winner who flirts dangerously with staleness as an upstart gathers momentum.

Second, the biggest personalities can’t win. Jade (“Top Model” Cycle Six), Melrose (Cycle Seven), and Brittany (Cycle Four) were incredibly entertaining in their insanity and/or obnoxiousness, and so they stayed around until the end: They made for good TV. But Tyra was never going to make Jade—she who spewed crocodile tears in front of the panel and made up words like “tornness” when describing her emotional ambivalence—a CoverGirl. Much the same, our grandparents in Florida were never going to vote to make a man who takes a cell-phone call from his wife while giving a speech in front of the National Rifle Association their nominee for president. If only Giuliani had watched Cycle Six.

And these lessons apply far beyond political races. Even here at Harvard we constantly cultivate narratives. When I start doing work for a new class, I struggle to balance working too hard (I don’t want to set expectations too high for my future work) with slacking off (I want to make a good first impression). I want to participate, but not too much—I’ll save my best comments for the end of section, so they stick in my TF’s mind as she ruminates over her grading book.

Of course I don’t calculate this coldly—and neither do the contestants on reality shows—but we live in a world that both Shakespeare and sociologist Erving Goffman compared to a theatrical stage. When we are all acting through life, figuring out what roles are likely to thrive is central to achieving success. And reality shows offer dozens of controlled experiments in narrative creation. Their outcomes provide troves of data to help us end up as Horatios instead of Hamlets, McCains instead of Giulianis, Jordins instead of Melindas.

Also, they’re fun to watch. Okay, mom?

Ryder B. Kessler ’08 is a social studies concentrator in Quincy House. His column appears on alternate Wednesdays.