The New Age of Reality TV: When the Off-Camera Drama Becomes the Plot

By Emma Chance | TV | October 8, 2024 |

By Emma Chance | TV | October 8, 2024 |

Perhaps the only people who could have foreseen the new era of reality television we’ve found ourselves in were Tom Sandoval and Rachel Leviss, the perpetrators of the Vanderpump Rules cheating scandal better known as “Scandoval,” were they intelligent enough to foresee … well, anything, really, including the consequences of their own actions. Regardless of their awareness on the subject, though, it was their affair and how it influenced the making of their show after it that changed the reality TV landscape as we know it.

Scandoval was the beginning of what is now standard: drama and intrigue that happens when cameras are down, leaking into storylines when cameras are rolling and driving the plot of the show. Reality shows used to rely on shoving a bunch of people together in a staged situation and seeing what happened, with the stars being just as blissfully unaware of what was coming for them as the viewers. Now the inmates are running the prison, as it were—reality stars pick and choose what aspects of their lives they want to expose and manipulate the storylines of their co-stars behind the scenes in order to deflect attention from themselves. This leads to a lot of innuendo and he-said-she-said, often ending up with the presentation of, in the immortal words of The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City’s Heather Gay, “Receipts, proof, timeline, screenshots, fucking everything!”

The confrontation that infamous quote came from was the second biggest example of the breaking down of the fourth wall on reality TV, when Heather and her fellow SLC Housewives confronted season four newcomer Monica Garcia, outing her as the face behind “Reality Von Tease,” an anonymous Instagram account that had been trolling the cast as long as their show was airing, spreading rumors and gossip.

The thing about reality TV is that even though the strings of the puppetry have always been entirely visible, these shows have also always had an unspoken rule about not talking about the show. Insert Fight Club reference here. But once the storyline of a show becomes the making of the show and what its stars are hiding, that’s a different kind of show entirely. Perhaps even … more real?

SLC responded to its season four closer with a season five opener the likes of which we’ve never seen in the Housewives franchise. Heather Gay narrates a montage of the women in their homes, in which they each say a line about what it’s like being on a reality show. Previews of what’s to come feature quotes about recording and exposing each other. The fourth wall isn’t just broken, there are no walls. We’re outside.

The recent premiere episode of The Real Housewives of New York City season 15 also did away with walls when they showed a behind-the-scenes look at the opening credits shoot, in which the drama of the season was revealed, and then spent the rest of the episode trying to explain what will eventually happen. (RHONY is an interesting case because this season is only the second of the reboot with an entirely new cast. In a way, the fourth wall was already broken with that move alone. The real lives and beliefs of the women of the original cast got so dark, with moments like Ramona Singer whispering “We’re the 1%” at a dinner party, that it couldn’t go unacknowledged anymore. And trust me, that’s the least offensive thing Ramona has ever said.)

And this week, The Real Housewives of Potomac took it one step further with a reenactment of the true crime style of Karen Huger’s off-camera DUI.

Real reality fans will remember the final scene of The Hills, in which a green screen was pulled away from behind one of the stars as if to say, “You fools!”

What once was the most shocking thing to ever happen in the genre is now industry standard, except we’re pointing out the green screen and then keeping it there. We’re speaking directly to the camera and calling cut and then continuing to roll.

What does all of this mean for reality TV? Anything can happen.