Sabotaging Reality: Exploring Canadian Women’s Participation on Neoliberal Reality TV

Abstract

It has been argued that reality TV competition shows mirror the contemporary neoliberal workplace by devaluing and exploiting the labour performed by contestants, especially work that is tied to the feminine, such as managing emotions. This study expands on these recent debates about gender, neoliberalism, and reality TV through the lens of the experiences of former show contestants. The author conducted semi-structured interviews with a small group of Canadian women who appeared on talent-based competition shows and found that while there is much to lament with respect to women’s treatment, their stories also reflect strong themes of resistance, and attempts to undermine the production process as a way to assert their agency individually but also collectively.

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