MTV’s famed reality/dating television show NEXT has received a good deal of criticism since it began to air in May of 2005 (IMDB), and it is not the intention of this essay to refute the majority of that criticism. As a reality TV program, NEXT portrayed shallow-minded, material contestants who judged other individuals mainly on the basis of appearance, and watching this superficial judgment was its principal allure. Most critics’ issue with the program was simply that NEXT was exactly what it sought to be: a comical and even satirical representation of callow characters competing for dates and money. Maribeth Theroux’s essay “The NEXT Plague: MTV’s Sexual Objectification of Girls and Why it Must be Stopped,” however, makes the additional claim that, as the title explains, NEXT commits the crime of objectifying young women (Silverman, 169). Although Theroux’s argument is not entirely free of sound reasoning, she fails to understand how knowledge of the reality show genre as satire and entertainment changes what viewers take from NEXT; specifically, how the aware viewer understands and expects NEXT’s frivolousness and knows not to take it seriously.It is a popular argument that reality television is detrimental to its viewers, as many programs rely on outrageously ridiculous, lewd, or irate characters acting in their most primitive form for their major appeal. James Steyer, author of “The Other Parent: The Inside Story of the Media’s Effect on Our Children,” says of reality TV: “There’s a premium on the lowest common denominator of human relationships. It’s often women degrading themselves. I don’t want my 9-year-old thinking that’s the way girls should behave,” (Poniewozik, 3). Theroux’s argument is not unlike Steyer’s; both wr…
…o parody the expectations that society holds about courting, and any viewer who can find humor and take pleasure in such a program is able to understand the difference between reality and reality TV.
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Works Cited
Silverman, Jonathan, and Dean Rader. The World Is a Text: Writing, Reading, and Thinking about Visual and Popular Culture. Prentice Hall, 2008. Print.
Episode Listing; NEXT (2005). The Internet Movie Database. Web. 26 Feb 2011.
Poniewozik, James. “Television: Why Reality TV is Good for Us.” TIME Magazine 17 Feb 2003. Web. 01 Mar 2011.
Shmoop Editorial Team. “The Importance of Being Earnest.” Shmoop.com. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 02 Mar 2011.
“Hell’s Kitchen: About.” FOX. Fox Broadcasting Company, 2008. Web. 28 Feb 2011.
“MTV’s NEXT.” 5 June 2010. YouTube. 03 March 2011.
