Materialism In Media

Modern day television is trying to create realistic shows to be more believable and to truly depict what it is like to live in America. An example of this is reality television, given its name most people believe what they see. Although, most of the time these stories are not true based on their actual lifestyle. Many reality television shows are scripted to create more drama in order to gain more viewers. Shows like “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” and “The Real Housewives” try to depict the true lifestyle of a woman with money. It shows that their friends must be within the same social class them, their husbands are rarely around, and their children are spoiled. Reality television resists a dominant stereotype of what it is like to live in America because sometimes their lifestyle’s may not be completely true let alone the rest of America’s.

A good example of this is “Keeping Up With the Kardashians”, a show based on the lifestyle of the Kardashian family. The show started based off of the fame of Kim, Khloe, and Kourtney, but now it goes into the lives of their mom Kris and younger sisters Kendall and Kylie. An episode in the show that depicts false American lifestyle is when the family takes a vacation to Bora Bora. In Bora Bora, Kim is thrown into the water causing her to lose her earring. After realizing the earring is missing Kim cries to her mother, Kris, about how they are so expensive and how she doesn’t have insurance. Kim looks bad for crying over such a small thing. Also, it gives the impression that they spend lots of money for small unnecessary things. Episodes like these reinforce stereotypes that all rich people are materialistic.