My mom, who is on top of pop culture like a tween on Twitter, recently told me that she started watching “Keeping up with the Kardashians”, a hit reality TV show of the E! channel. Like all reality TV shows, there is no plot and has no contribution to society; however, it does have a really rich family that fights about absolutely nothing and one of the daughters made a sex tape back in 2005... of course it’s popular!
From a corporate marketing stand point, “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” was a brilliant idea for a reality TV show: The Brady Bunch of Hollywood. There was strategy behind promoting the show that can be understood if compared to theories of media analysis.
Here’s the breakdown: reality shows are popular, in my opinion, because they feature representations of “real people.” As social psychologist Sandra Jovchelovitch coined: “the reality of the human world is in its entirety made up of representation.” With that knowledge taken into account regarding the entertainment world, it makes a lot of sense. People look to entertainment and relatable images in the media for example of how to live their lives. Different people see themselves (based on race, gender, sexual orientation, age, religion, ect.) represented in the media in particular contexts or situations. (This is where stereotypes stem from, but we’ll get to that later.) It has come to be, according to Jovchelovitch, that every human interaction, everything in human reality, is a result of representation. I have a hard time arguing with her, and this comparison of the theory to the phenomena of the reality television show is one of my reasons.
For a television show to be a success there must be a bait used for audiences to tune in every week. The creators of the show, one of them being reality TV mogul Jonathan Murray, used the “big, rich family living in Hollywood” angle as the bait for audiences. In television, and in popular culture as a whole, the fascination with the lifestyles of the rich and fabulous has been trend on the high rise. The Kardashians were the perfect family to fit this mold. The late father of the four Kardashian children, Robert Kardashian, was one of the attorneys that got O.J. Simpson acquitted so they come from family wealth. The mother re-marries Olympic Gold medalist Bruce Jenner. To top it all off, one of the children, Kim, was known for her association with Paris Hilton and for making a majorly distributed sex tape. All of this made the association with fame and money still a factor in the family.
The next step of the strategy focused on captivating a particular audience, also known as a target audience. The goal demographic for a television show is women ages 18-34, according to Nielsen Media Source. To make this demographic loyal the show focused on the relationship between the three sisters: Kourtney, Khloe, and Kim Kardashian. Here is where the theory of social representation comes in-- the audience watches the show about a rich family because of the money, mansions, and materials that “normal folk” cannot afford. [Audiences cannot relate but they still are fascinated.] Then the audience is captivated by the relationship between the three fun, frivolous, and fabulous sisters. Within this captivation there are two initial ingredients that keep the audience watching: family appeal and sex appeal.
Tight knit families on television are pleasing to watch because it is relatable. This family appeal is the original reason why my mother started watching the show. No matter how rich [or ridiculous] the Kardashians may be, they are still a family that displays the importance of being together.
Contradicting that ideological set of “family values” completely is the sex appeal reflected in the show. Kim Kardashian, the most famous of the sisters, provides a focal point of the sex appeal. Kim is absolutely beautiful and, according to Murray, “is the whole package that appeals to both genders.” She has a sexuality that appeals to men and a personality appeals to women.
Her two sisters compliment her rising star by with their personalities. Kim is the “beautiful, popular one,” Kourtney is the “logical, collected one,” and Khloe is the “wild, misunderstood one.” These characteristics the sisters display are an example of a social representation because they all fill stereotypes of women ages 18-34-- the exact demographic the show is targeting. The audience, then, is fascinated with their glamorous lifestyle, intrigued by the “plot lines” of the family, allured by the sexual appeal of Kim and the sisters, and all the while is under the impression that these Kardashian characters are just like them. The sum of all those strategic factors + four seasons grossing an average of 3.1 million viewers per episode + the pop culture machine = a hit reality TV show.
Okay so now that I’ve deconstructed the strategic makings of a reality TV series, I’m going to focus on why the target demographic and loyal fans of the Kardashians SHOULD NOT see them as a representation of “real women.” First of all Kim, Kourtney, and Khloe (does ANYBODY else think that they changed the spelling of their names for the show?) stood out to the public as being “normal” looking young women. They weren’t platinum blondes who were disgustingly skinny, but rather voluptuous brunettes. On a handful of episodes they talk about their issues with their bodies, pressures of being in the spotlight constantly, and not feeling comfortable in their skin.
INSTEAD of taking a positive approach to their body issues by stating that they love themselves for who they are, two of the three Kardashian ladies become the spokes models for the TrimQuick dietary supplement. (Tagline: Live the Dream!) AND Kim Kardashian has a new Carls Jr. commercial about a salad. This commercial looks like an ad for phone sex.
Due to their growing fame, and unflattering photoshopped pictures in the tabloids, the Kardashian ladies constantly spoke about their bodies as a project that constantly needs to be worked on. Not only that but on the show they talk about...hmm...nothing. All they talk about is losing weight, sleeping with different men, and petty problems within their family. I know it’s a scripted and heavily edited “reality” show about a rich and beautiful family, but the Kardahsians have quickly become household names.
This show, and these Kardashian women, should not be role models for women who watch the show because they are a poor representation of real women. When they argue they sound uneducated and when they talk they sound vapid and stupid. The popular culture machine has taken this family and made them into an empire of women who display immoral values and a terrible example for how women treat themselves.
