Written by Zoe Davies

Reality television offers viewers a glimpse into the lives of people that might otherwise not be seen. It can also be seen as a platform for the subjects of the programs, to clear up misconceptions, and show their story or struggle. (Holmes & Jermyn 2004, p19)

Often, reality television is characterised as ‘trash TV’ due to common conception that it ‘…contains low budget, low production values, mediocre talent and an overall lack of quality…reality TV rarely contains political content’ (Dovey, 2006,86) Jon Dovey takes the position that reality TV has actually destroyed anything authentic about television and that it wages class warfare and promotes proletarian exploitation.

In the voyeurism of Reality TV, the viewer's passivity is kept intact, pampered and massaged and force-fed Chicken McNuggets of carefully edited snippets that permit him or her to sit in easy judgment and feel superior at watching familiar strangers make fools of themselves. Reality TV looks in only one direction: down. (Wolcott, P2)

We argue that argue that reality TV actually holds the unique potential to cast a relevant range of perspectives on crucial social issues via real people reacting to real situations. In this paper we will argue that reality TV does not have to be confined to the conventions of low budget Reality TV and has the power to be self assertive and politically minded. By combining elements of fact and entertainment, it has the ability to engage an entirely new audience who perhaps would not be compelled to watch a lengthy documentary on the debate around asylum seekers in Australia, but may be more inclined to watch a three part reality television series such as Go Back To Where You Came From (GBTWYCF).

GBTWYCF Season One was broadcast on SBS in June 2011. This article will focus on series one as the major case study and take the selection of participants as an attempt to reflect the attitudes and values of ‘ordinary Australians’. According to Inside Film, GBTWYCF was SBS’s highest rating show in 2011.  “Last night’s (Thursday) episode of the controversial series – which uniquely looks at the heated asylum-seeker debate – had about 600,000 viewers in the five mainland capitals, according to preliminary ratings from Oztam” (if.com.au, 2001)

As producer and presenter Dr David Corlett contends, the show is a social experiment that takes ‘ordinary Australians’ each with their own biases and opinions surrounding the asylum seeker debate “on a journey they’ll never forget”. Deprived of their wallets, phones and passports, they are pushed to better understand what drives refugees to board leaky boats on dangerous oceans to get to Australia. “What better way to understand the refugee experience than by living it?” asks Dr Corlett. (GBTWYCF, Ep1, 2011)

The balance of attitudes, backstories, socio-economic status’, lifestyles and education in each of the participants is perhaps an attempt to reflect the general Australian populace and their respective views on the asylum seeker debate, The focus on a need for these prejudices to be changed and eliminated reveals the target audience the show is trying to reach. The transformations of the participants that occur throughout the series are played out as applicable to ‘anyone’ with a humane sense of justice or compassion. Almost all the participants are white and middle class and show an ignorance and a genuine belief that there is no need for the extreme measures refugees take in order to get to Australia. Refugees are simply ‘queue jumpers’ economic refugees’ or ‘country shoppers’ as described during the show. We would argue that it is these common assumptions that the show attempts to debunk.

It is interesting to note that only two of the contestants appear to have any sympathy toward ‘boat people’ and ‘queue jumpers’ and that the other four contestants echo the fairly hard-line sentiments of both the labour and liberal government. The overwhelming anti-asylum seeker sentiment that plagues the participants perhaps attempts to mirror the general opinions of the Australian public, which makes the ‘transformations’ of each character in terms of their values and opinions all the more poignant. The participants may also have been selected in order to reflect the attitudes the show attempts to highlight and change, making the majority of what is being shown in the program as relevant to the individuals and their engrained attitudes, which are likely to reflect the attitudes of many who are similar to them. Each ‘ordinary Australian’ comes in with their own set of prejudices and personal, yet commonplace views on ‘boat people’. The casting however, is indicative of the way so many Australians are not supportive of a more sympathetic approach to asylum-seekers, preferring a hard line against unauthorised arrivals. The three-part social documentary is clearly very pointed towards that protected, isolationist demographic which has never had contact with asylum-seekers or refugees, doesn’t actively seek that contact and prefers that immigration was a subject which didn’t disturb their sheltered lifestyles.

“On the face of it, reality series GBTWYCF aims to help Australians understand what it is like to be a refugee, and to become aware of the  factors that might drive a human being to risk their lives to find  safety on our shores. What it does best, however, is to introduce us to ourselves.” (Bartlett, 2012, p4)

Through its careful selection of participants, the show aims to hold a mirror up to our nation, allowing us to see how uncomfortable we are with our own attitudes and prejudices. What is perhaps most confronting about Go Back is how fiercely some of its subjects resist attempts to narrow the divide between ‘boat people’ and ‘ordinary Australians’. Gleny Rae, a 39-year-old part-time schoolteacher and country singer is the only one who takes a liberal stance from the outset declaring that “we definitely have the capacity to take more refugees” (GBTWYCF, Ep1, 2011) and shares her desire to have refugees stay in her home while they undergo processing. Rodney Schnider is less sympathetic but does employ the argument of equality in his claim that “people shouldn’t have to get on boats”, and seems more open to working towards eliminating the cause to end the problem.

Raye is sixty three and lives opposite the Inverbrackie detention centre in the Adelaide Hills is even tougher when it comes to keeping refugees out of Australian."When the boat crashed coming into Christmas Island I thought, 'Serve you bastards right," she says at the series start. "Come the right way and it wouldn't have happened."

These views are commonly derived from the ‘Howard Narrative’, which encapsulated the infamous ‘Children Overboard Scandal’ that characterised asylum seekers as inhumane monsters who were attempting to invade our shores and poison our values of fairness and equality. Rae embodies the result of this narrative; that there is something grossly unfair about illegals ‘cheating the system’. She sees her rural ‘utopia’ threatened by the beautiful “… newly painted detention centre, where refugees demand generosity from the Australian government” Memorably, she tells us she felt so angry that she “…could have gone over there with a gun and shot the lot of them”. (GBTWYCF Ep1, 2011) She is, as we soon discover, the decent Australian who has been poisoned by the fear, outrage and resentment that characterise discourse and myths surrounding asylum seekers.

By the end of the series, simply by taking a walk in the shoes of asylum seekers she claims;

“I would do anything to improve the life of my own children and I think if that meant getting on a boat I would probably go ahead and do it. If it means taking a risk, their whole life is a risk, so what’s one more if it means freedom? I honestly never thought I would say this. I never imagined how bad life could really be. It’s degrading. The sun comes up and goes down and nothing else happens. They just have to survive and that is all they are doing because it certainly isn’t living.” (GBTWYCF Ep3, 2011)

Raquel’s dislike for asylum seekers is born more from misunderstanding than genuine political rationale. She is simply following the narrative of her upbringing, which like many privileges the plight of ‘Aussie Battlers’ and the ANZAC Myth which does not allow room for new additions into the outlook.

"Australia should be Australia, just like Africa is Africa and Asia is Asia and America is America. It shouldn't be so multicultural," declares self-confessed racist Raquel who is an unemployed young woman from NSW. She left school at fourteen and is proud of her grandfather who fought to protect Australia in the Second World War. She appears to believe that racism is a rite of passage and that Australia should exist as exclusively ‘Australian’. (GBTWYCF Ep1, 2011)

Both women are exposed to the facts and experiences generally omitted from the asylum seeker debate and the fragility of the Howard narrative simply by coming face to face with the humanity of the people they meet. The need for nuance in the argument that is so commonly black and white is revealed. Change is evident in each and every participant.

Adam Hartup is a genuine Australian ‘bloke’; a bronzed and athletic professional lifeguard who at the outset claims;  

“I saw boat people as illegal immigrants or criminals and had no time for them. I couldn’t understand why we were spending millions and millions of taxpayer’s dollars to help these people out. I mean, I could see the hardships that people in Australia were facing with fires, floods and Cyclones destroying families and lives at that time. So I guess I was just confused and didn’t really understand this complex subject. (GBTWYCF Ep2, 2011)

He displays genuine shock at the situations he is confronted with and manages to discard his preconceived ideas of refugees and put himself in their shoes.

To see the desperation and heartbreak through out, it really brings you back to reality and makes you realise how well we have it in Australia and even better, in the Shire. To house 52 Chin Burmese refugees for a month was 1 weeks wage for me and to think how hard they work for that is amazing. At anytime they can be arrested and thrown in jail because they are illegal, so to see the living conditions and the constant fear of persecution, it makes me think I’d do exactly the same thing if I could (get on a boat). (GBTWYCF Ep4, 2011)

His focus on the comparison of his own life with the lives of refugees shows a simple, non-political response that is founded quite simply in the distress at seeing another suffer.

He is contrasted with Darren Hassan who represents a far more politically active citizen. He has been in the army, delved into politics and international trade affairs while living in many countries abroad. Descending from Afghanistan, Darren is multi lingual and acutely aware of the immigrant narrative. However, Darren is extremely suspicious of boat people, labelling them as “economic opportunists”. He also maintains that “many migrants and refugees haven’t integrated well”.

This problem of integration is the hot button issue that effects Australian’s that fear immigration will eliminate inherently Australian values and that refugees will ‘take over’. Darren’s response to the entire experience was interesting and can be seen most potently Following a staged ordeal in which the participants find themselves on a sinking fishing boat. David Corlett challenges Darren on his persistent anti–boat people rhetoric. Forced to confront potential double standards, Darren shuts down, stating the program makers are ‘emotionally involving us without our consent’. Darren is clearly uncomfortable and resents David’s highly emotive use of language and the light it casts him in. Regardless, he exposes how hard Australians will work to distance themselves from having to care.

‘We have to watch this in our media and then we become involved involuntarily … it just pisses me off … it’s like, you should feel bad, you should feel  empathy’.

What he seems to be saying here is, yes, we know the decent thing is to care about these people, but we’d rather we didn’t have to. In this light, Raquel’s ignorance of others’ suffering seems quite innocent. Darren represents a far greater portion of the populace who are aware of the issue, but wish they weren’t. Not only do we ignore the problems, but resent those who intend to edge us out of our own apathy. This is the attitude of many Australians.

These are no doubt complex issues, and not applicable to the interests of everyone in Australian society. However, the same can be said of Celebrity Splash or Masterchef – not everyone wants to watch. It is important that we acknowledge this, the same way we collectively acknowledge that oftentimes, reality television has no allegiance to true ‘reality’ but perhaps does nod to an ideal distraction from the less entertaining parts of real life, and the social problems we face.

Political and ethical messages should have a place in reality television, if it is indeed to reflect true reality. However, the format does not traditionally include this mode of discussion. There is no doubt a certain tension between the ambitions of producers to include these kinds of messages and questions, and the concrete need to attract and maintain audiences. As Tania Lewis points out in much of her research, we are entering an era of neo-liberalism where we are increasingly reliant upon popular culture to educate us on the best way to live a healthy life and keep ourselves safe. These kinds of messaged used to be reserved for the state to impose and impart through campaigns and political discourse. If these kinds of issues are being taken up and tackled by reality television, it is perhaps not implausible to ask whether politics could perhaps play a bigger part in reality television. If we see reality television as taking on the responsibilities of the state, perhaps we can expect to see it taking on responsibilities for more complex and global issues. We have already established that reality television does well at representing the diversity in Australia, but fails to explore it’s complexities and perhaps doesn’t consider the attitudes such representations can bring into being. Perhaps the responsibility does now in fact lie with the producers of reality television.

As viewers become more and more adept at picking up technical flaws in reality television, recognising elements such as falsity of time, implausibility of ‘random’ situations and even product placement. Perhaps with the right amount of imput from producers, active viewers could also begin to decipher new and refashioned models of reality television, which would in turn, attract viewers who previously condemned reality television as a waste of time.

GBTWYCF could provide a middle ground, where the plot is prepared but where it goes from there is all down to the participants and their actions. This kind of model, fused with the accessibility of a show that displays huge diversity both of gender and race such as My Kitchen Rules could be an ideal amalgamation. It could indeed lead to to the kind of ‘info-tainment’ Annette Hill (2005) describes where fact is fused with entertainment.

“Certainly, reality TV is a very manipulated format where the basis of it is that real people are put into unreal situations to create a story,” said J. Rupert Thompson, a director and producer who includes “Big Brother” and “Fear Factor” among his credits. “What makes it so compelling is that you never know what a real person’s reaction to an unreal situation will be. That’s why you get such great stuff on reality TV.”

The longtime television critic for the Hollywood Reporter Ray Richmond doesn't see things becoming any less murky in the future. “We can expect that more and more reality shows will be scripted, albeit unofficially," he says. "It’s important to keep in mind that almost nobody involved with these shows will ever acknowledge the wizard behind the curtain. There is almost an element of collusion on everyone’s part, or a code of silence, to never let on, lest the pot of gold disappear.” (Ventre, 2009)

Richmond uses a fairly political term in his denunciation of the future of reality television by referring to a ‘code of silence’. This kind of silence is exactly the element that shows like GBTWYCF are attempting to fragment.

Tania Lewis’ argument regarding the future of reality TV is perhaps more compelling and constructive. Lewis refers to the popularity of reality TV as being it’s major quality and refers to it’s unique ability to speak across a range of platforms – she calls it ‘classic water cooler television’. This element could relate to the broad platform shift of political discussion from private spaces onto social media sites such as Facebook and has the potential to evolve and spill into the equally popular realm of reality TV. Lewis does note that the political dimension does rely on producers to have a political drive and the courage to step out of traditional modes and challenge their audiences.

“Five years ago there was a lot more home makeover shows on television, now its cooking. Who knows what we will have in five years? (Lewis, 2013)

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Lewis, T, 2013 How do certain Reality Television shows reflect popular myths in Australia, Interviewed by Zoe Annabel Davies and Katrina Varey [in person] RMIT University , 07/05/2013.

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Ventre, M, 2009 Just how real are reality TV shows?. [online] Available at: http://www.today.com/id/30092600/ns/today-entertainment/t/just-how-real-are-reality-tv-shows/#.UYonjCspaQY [Accessed: 21 May 2013].