In the Sue Collins article, she talks a lot about what it means to be a "celebrity" in today's society. She talks a lot about dispensable celebrity and celebrity as a commodity. I really found it interesting to learn about how reality celebrities only get picked to appear on talk shows only when the shows can't find A-List celebrities to be on that night. In her article, Collins says "Reality celebrities might make it on The Tonight Show, or The Late Show which primarily book A-level talent, but they are unlikely to displace stars looking to be booked or become part of the stable of regular guests needed to sustain the shows" (104). She also went on to say that they typically need around 4500 celebrities to interview...so I can see why they need the reality celebrities to filter in between the A-List celebrities. Personally, I think that it is ridiculous to see all of these celebrities...if you can even call them that, make so much money with just promotions, and stuff. I remember watching an interview with Mike "The Situation" from Jersey Shore, and hes expected to make around 5 million just by doing promotional stuff, including taping the series. Hopefully, reality TV doesn't overcome "regular TV" in the future where we start giving prestigious awards to people like the situation, or to someone who's nickname is "Snooki."
In the Murray article, she basically talks a lot about documentary TV versus Reality TV and weather or not they are the same. She talks about how networks and the viewers get confused when watching either type of shows because they are so closely defined similarly that they consider them both one of the same. Documentaries, however, are to be defined in the past as being educational and informative. Murray talks about also how they are described as being "serious historical or social significance" (43). I agree with her concluding argument because you can distinguish between the two because of how closely each are related to each other by definitions. You pretty much determine what they (the shows) are based on what the networks say that they are. If they think that the demographic of their audience will watch the show more if they think its a reality show vs. a documentary, then that is what they will call it. I completely agree with that.
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