Television has been entertaining viewers for years now with reality TV shows, which let us watch other people’s lives instead of having to live our own. With shows like “Breaking Bonaduce,” “America’s Next Top Model” and “Hogan Knows Best,” viewers get to see the overly dramatic, more-messed-up-than-our-own lives of our favorite celebrities, or people who just want to become celebrities.
MTV’s newest reality venture “The Reality Show,” allows contestants to pitch a reality show idea and let the audience decide which contestant’s show should win. Like most “Survivor”-inspired reality TV shows, “The Reality Show” consistently eliminates contestants until one winner remains. Ten finalists were chosen, and, as of now, only three remain.
This new trend begs the question: if Quinnipiac students had the opportunity to have their own reality TV show, what would the concept involve? The Chronicle hit campus to find out.
As if students did not already know what living as a college student was like, a handful of students said they would want to base their reality shows around the college lifestyle. Janine Tomala, a junior marketing major, says she would do more of a TV special than a regularly aired program about three different college students and their lives, as well as their friends.
Andrea Fazio, a junior public relations major, had a different idea, but along the same lines as Tomala’s. Instead of comparing just three college students, Fazio would want to compare two different schools. One school would be a small, private school like Quinnipiac while the other school would be a huge party school, like the University of California. Fazio says she would follow the students around on Friday and Saturday nights and see what they do and how they act.
“Think of how entertaining that would be,” Fazio said.
Fazio thinks her reality TV concept will show “the real college life; not what you see on the tours.”
Jennifer Berlin, a senior physical therapy major, would also base her reality show around college students, but her idea would focus on Quinnipiac’s physical therapy students.
“It’s so rough here, especially as the years progress, and it’d be interesting to see what students would be doing in what little spare time they [have] or to emphasize just how much we have to study,” Berlin said.
Berlin also thinks it would be amusing to compare the physical therapy students: those that have to study a lot and get satisfactory grades and those that hardly ever study and do really well in all their classes.
Some students, however, went outside the realm of college life. For example, Dylan White, a junior media production major, wants his reality show to be a contest involving participants wishing to become big name film directors. Throughout the show, contestants will make their own movies, and at the end of the season, a big name director will watch the contestants’ movies, and decide who deserves a job in the filmmaking industry.
Other students had ideas of doing an “Ultimate Fighting Championship”-type reality show, or having a contest where participants wanting to be in the culinary field cook for the QU student, and she decides at the end who wins. Several other students admitted to disliking reality TV show, claiming the shows do not even depict reality.
