You Know What You Signed Up For (or Do You?)
On the right to emotional intimacy in reality TV
I’m currently in the middle of moving apartments and as a result have cycled through listening to albums, podcasts, youtube videos, and now tv shows in the background while packing, the latest binge having been the entire first season of The Traitors, a mafia-style competition reality show.
While watching the reunion I noticed something happening that’s so similar to what happens on the “Women Tell All” or “After The Final Rose” episodes of The Bachelor, which is what I’m dubbing the you-know-what-you-signed-up-for phenomenon: when a contestant gets hurt by another person on the show after forming a true emotional connection or bond, such as someone getting backstabbed or lied to on The Traitors, they’re met with the critique either by other contestants or the audience watching that they should have known what they signed up for and expected nothing less. After all, it’s the name of the game, quite literally.
On The Bachelor, this is often brought up as a retort from viewers when a contestant expresses jealousy to the lead as they see him kissing other girls or later on in the season, when overnight dates become a part of the equation and they set expectations of not being comfortable with the lead sleeping with the other girls. It’s easy to say, well if you’ve ever watched the show before, the whole premise rests on the lead dating multiple contestants at once or that overnight dates are a standard part of the show that don’t usually change from season to season even if certain leads choose to handle them differently.
There’s two parts to this: a) the contestant feeling these emotions, and b) the contestant claiming another is immoral for doing said thing to hurt them. I think the first part is very valid — at the end of the day, you aren’t going to know how you actually will act or feel until you’re there in the flesh and you can’t control those feelings that arise.
The second part is where things get a little blurry. On a show like The Traitors, it feels more like a spelled out competition where sure you’re doing “immoral” things like lying, but under the guise of the game. Many of them come on saying they’re prepared to lie straight to people’s faces in order to win the money and they take pride in that. But what happens when those actions have consequences for the very real relationships that have formed throughout the season that will continue to exist outside of the show? We see that immediately come into play at the top of season two, where contestants who have competed against each other on other reality shows in the past, like Survivor, are not only distrustful of each other off the bat, but haven’t even spoken to each other in years since they were competing with each other because of the soured relationship.
During the season one reunion, Andie and Quentin claim that Cirie may have not had control over being chosen as a Traitor, but she crossed the line by weaponizing the stories they shared about their personal lives to get another Traitor out of the picture in order to win more money, when it probably wasn’t completely necessary to secure the bag. Honestly, I can totally sympathize with all of them. It was so thrilling to watch Cirie’s plan pay off at the end, but it probably was a total mind fuck for Andie, especially because she was the one person they actually trusted in the game since the very start. And the Arie of it all could make for an entire other essay considering the racial and class dynamics that came into play of what is or is not considered morally grey as well. They’re breaking the fourth wall by acknowledging yes it’s a game, but their external biases, thoughts, and feelings they have as people outside the show will affect their perception of their fellow players.
If competition game shows are at one end of the reality tv spectrum and follow-me-around-my-“normal”-life-style shows are at the other end, then dating shows probably fall in the middle. While there’s still a very apparent manufactured environment that’s been created, the hope is that the interactions we see are contestants’ real feelings and that the relationships continue to grow independent of the show after they leave.
The Bachelor in particular is interesting because more than other dating shows like Love Island, it already holds contestants to a higher standard of a certain kind of “morality,” especially because it was made to appeal to a Christian middle American audience. With the influx of influencers and stars coming off the show, it became common turn of phrase to question whether people were going on “for the right reasons,” the implication of course being that fame was most certainly the opposite of a right reason.
Unlike a relationship that operates in the real world, there’s an inherent power dynamic at play in The Bachelor and contestants are barely given enough time to get to know the lead, let alone unpack the dynamics of a constantly shifting one-sided open relationship. And if the environment is not able to be altered by contestants, what the conclusion quickly becomes — which the same can be said for a show like The Traitor — is, you know what you signed up for, but are you actually cut out for it. And is it okay if you find out halfway through the season that you aren’t.
Hope y’all have been hanging in there and staying safe while protesting! <3 I’m hoping that once I get settled in my new place, I can catch up on my book club book and report back, but I’ve also got a couple other ideas for posts in the queue. This one was more of a spontaneous one that was born out of a tweet that I couldn’t fit under the character count (classic), so thought I might as well wax poetic. Love you all and I’m happy to be back writing.