Loana, Nabilla, Kim Glow… How reality TV destroys women

Reality TV has fascinated for more than twenty years. But if these programs continue to attract audiences, we must question its toxic representations of women, for the viewers as well as for the participants themselves.

Loana, Nabilla, Jazz, Kim Glow… We can no longer count the women who have had a strong notoriety thanks to reality TV. If Loana was the first major female star of this type of show, she was also the patient zero of sexism in reality TV. And since her first appearance, the image of women has changed little on the small screen. "Since the Loft, we've often stuck to the same kind of femininity in reality TV", explains journalist Paul Sanfourche, author of Sexism Story (ed. Seuil), aufeminin. How are the representations of women in reality TV reductive? What impact on the spectator, but also on the participants? From a distorted portrayal of women to the toxic environment in which they are made to live, we explain to you why reality TV represents what is most frontally sexist on the small screen.

Reality TV: a distorted representation of women

The problem with reality TV lies above all in the way in which women are shown on it. They suffer from terrible labels, which confine them either to the roles of bimbos or idiots (sometimes both). Loana was the first and perfect example, French. "From the moment Loana is the big winner, there is a role model: that of the bimbo", explains Paul Sanfourche, "and it will be reproduced in various reality shows. I was able to discuss with the teams of Endemol, the production which spotted Loana. At that time, they had two models in mind: Marilyn Monroe and Pamela Anderson. So they themselves come with an extremely stereotypical cultural background and the idea that Loana will be the new Marilyn. "

As for Nabilla, almost twenty years later, she has long been "the idiot of the small screen", with his shampoo stories. Never mind that she has since shown that she can aim very high, from modeling and cosmetics to other successful businesses. In short, the image of these women is not very glorious. There is also a lack of variety of profiles in these programs. By encouraging this, reality TV gives up representing women in all their plurality, not to mention the sexist gaze that is focused on them, whoever they are.

Where are the black people?

In this type of show, diversity is also lacking. Few of the racialized women have significant airtime on these shows. Virginie Philippot, for example, is one of the few black women to have participated in Secret Story. We barely count Marie-France Gomis, in 2008, and Jessica Da Silva, in 2014. Result: we are presented with women with one and only physique: generally white, thin and filmed in such a way that, subsequently, sexist jokes are on the increase.

Level of exemplarity, televiewers, often young, deserve better. "This omnipresence of uniformed bodies with extremely advanced male gaze can impact young viewers via dysmorphobia disorders, insists Paul Sanfourche. This was very well documented by the Mental Health Foundation in 2019 from viewings of the show Love island. We saw how young viewers could be impacted psychologically by a representation of bodies that was totally supernatural, or in any case, very artificial ”.

It is obvious that reality TV carries with it gender stereotypes, on and off sets. In November 2020, we remember Jazz, the show The JLC Family, which had provoked the anger of some. On social media, she had filmed herself scolding her two-year-old son and spanking him for putting on nail polish. However, for Jazz his son cannot wear any, because "it's a boy." In terms of progressivism and openness, we have seen much better.

To see also: This reality star tells her son he can't wear nail polish because he's a boy

Video by Sarah polak

Entertainment that makes women evolve in a toxic environment

As for the culture of the clash, it is well underway in reality TV. This is what has made the main success of these programs since their inception, Loft Story launching the trend at the beginning of the 2000s. This culture of confusion is causing great damage and the first to suffer the consequences are women. Remember that reality TV is to observe people … confined. Even before the pandemic brought the concept of containment into our daily lives, participants in Loft Story or Secret Story had already tried the experience and the consequences that flow from it. Confining people who initially did not know each other from Eve or Adam, including men cast for their "big mouth", is to take the risk of exposing them to violence.

Gender representations are extremely stereotypical in these programs.

Are we not therefore witnessing, without even realizing it, a trivialization of violence against women, but also a strengthening of the relationship of constant domination of men towards women? The invisibilization of this gravity is all the more present as we are dealing here with television "entertainment" … Their impact on viewers is, once again, proven, according to Paul Sanfourche. "Gender representations are extremely stereotypical in these programs, he explains. Obviously, this will have consequences for all spectators. This is very indirect, but it circumscribes the people who participate in it in a very typical role: on the one hand, we have the domineering Don Juan and on the other, fragile seductive women. It's a sort of impoverishment of the portrayals of women on screen. "

Reality TV, programs that destroy its participants?

The women who participate in these shows bear the costs as much as society. Paul Sanfourche returns to this comparison of Loana to Marilyn Monroe, which the production studios of Loft Story have built by recruiting her. "When you know how Marilyn Monroe was exploited by the Hollywood industry, it foreshadows what will happen next to Loana", he analyzes. Indeed, like the Hollywood actress, Loana has been caught in an unprecedented media spiral. After his victory in the show Loft Story in 2001 under the label "bimbo", another one was stuck on her, just as sexist: she was stigmatized as "bad mother", after the revelations about the abandonment of her daughter Mindy, who lives in foster care. Over the years, Loana also ages. She changes, but her body remains at the heart of conversations and the headlines of celebrity magazines. Scrutinized, mocked, deemed too sexy, then too fat according to public opinion… We don't spare her.

With Loana, we talk about the patient zero of sexism insofar as she was assigned a box from her first appearance on television.

Loana’s experience probably allowed future candidates to approach reality TV with a different perspective and professionalism. Paul Sanfourche thus takes the example of Nabilla, a true businesswoman today, who has built a character on her own."It totally depends on the personality, explains the author. There is a difference between a Loana and a Nabilla, for example. The second was able to be built from examples of reality TV that already existed and opted for a very professional approach, with all that that entails as a risk, but also, with a preparation for that. She had the opportunity to be able to develop defense weapons. The effects seem different in different people. So I don't think there is an irreparable victim status. Besides, Loana refutes it. She says it regularly: she is very happy to have done the Loft, it changed his life ", explains Paul Sanfourche, who was able to speak with the ex-star of Loft Story to write his book.

Thus, some reality TV candidates were able to protect themselves by creating this "character a little shell" defined by Paul Sanfourche. Others, like Loana, arrive on a reality TV set with "the promise to be herself (s)." Except that in wanting to stay pure and authentic, that's probably what "puts them in the front line in the face of criticism" … Whatever the impact on the participants, reality TV remains a terrible machine to break all women, via performances and television mechanics that urgently need to be changed.

Sexism Story, by Paul Sanfourche, at Editions Seuil.