TY - JOUR
T1 - The irony bribe and reality television
T2 - Investment and detachment in the bachelor
AU - Cloud, Dana
PY - 2010/12/1
Y1 - 2010/12/1
N2 - In season 11 of the ABC reality television program The Bachelor, bachelor Brad Womack refused to choose a mate, thus breaking the romantic contract that is the essence of this reality show. In doing so, Womack exposed the emptiness of the mythic romantic script, prompting both invested outrage and ironic detachment among viewers. An analysis of the contradictions upon which the show's fantasy founders (thus encouraging an ironic response), alongside exploration of fan discussion board discourse, confirms the capacity of audiences to maintain simultaneous earnest investment and ironic reflexivity toward the program. This oscillation of stance signals a textual strategy that I label the irony bribe. The irony bribe corresponds to the paradoxical epistemology of reality television; viewers can regard the program as real" and not-real" and therefore worth viewing and worthless at the same time. A counterpoint to Fredric Jameson's concept of the fantasy bribe, the irony bribe wins viewers to participation in an ideological discourse by tempting them not only with the fantasy, in this case, of mythic romance, but also with the pleasures of the reaction against taking the fantasy seriously. Viewers' creative and critical responses to The Bachelor do not necessarily mitigate its ideological conservatism with regard to gender and romance; rather, they may naturalize its worldview, ironically, in the process of denaturalizing it.
AB - In season 11 of the ABC reality television program The Bachelor, bachelor Brad Womack refused to choose a mate, thus breaking the romantic contract that is the essence of this reality show. In doing so, Womack exposed the emptiness of the mythic romantic script, prompting both invested outrage and ironic detachment among viewers. An analysis of the contradictions upon which the show's fantasy founders (thus encouraging an ironic response), alongside exploration of fan discussion board discourse, confirms the capacity of audiences to maintain simultaneous earnest investment and ironic reflexivity toward the program. This oscillation of stance signals a textual strategy that I label the irony bribe. The irony bribe corresponds to the paradoxical epistemology of reality television; viewers can regard the program as real" and not-real" and therefore worth viewing and worthless at the same time. A counterpoint to Fredric Jameson's concept of the fantasy bribe, the irony bribe wins viewers to participation in an ideological discourse by tempting them not only with the fantasy, in this case, of mythic romance, but also with the pleasures of the reaction against taking the fantasy seriously. Viewers' creative and critical responses to The Bachelor do not necessarily mitigate its ideological conservatism with regard to gender and romance; rather, they may naturalize its worldview, ironically, in the process of denaturalizing it.
KW - Camp
KW - Fantasy Bribe
KW - Gender Ideology
KW - Irony
KW - Reality television
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=78449305878&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=78449305878&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/15295030903583572
DO - 10.1080/15295030903583572
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:78449305878
VL - 27
SP - 413
EP - 437
JO - Critical Studies in Media Communication
JF - Critical Studies in Media Communication
SN - 1529-5036
IS - 5
ER -