Expect the Unexpected

             The one show my family gathers together to watch is Big Brother.  This reality game show brings in twelve houseguests to live in one house for the duration of summer.  The houseguests are isolated from the outside world and can’t even watch TV or the news.  Every week, they participate in a competition and the winner is dubbed the Head of Household, or HOH.  The Head of Household then nominates two houseguests for eviction.  However, the two nominees have a chance to save themselves in the power of veto competition and take themselves off the block.  The week finishes with one houseguest going home and the new head of household competition.  Like any other reality show, there is always drama.  I personally always look forward to each season and guess which houseguests will form showmances (romantic relationship on the show).

Big Brother prides itself on bringing in a multitude of different personalities from across the country onto the show.  Every season there is always a small town girl, a mom or dad, and a free-lance bachelor, along with people of different race and homosexuals (there was even a transgender woman last season).  The producers include these conflicting personalities to, “front-load the probability for drama into the very premises of their shows” (Rushkoff 38).  One of the most popular seasons was Season 12 when Rachel and Regan would get in a fight almost every episode.  This bickering between the two characters would create drama in the house and appeal to viewers to watch the show. 

In a presentist culture, we live in an always-on “now” where our priorities are in the present, not the future.  Reality shows, like Big Brother, roll camera 24 hours a day, hoping to catch little snippets of conflict or drama.  In the house, “any moment is as potentially significant as any other.  It’s up to the editors to construct something like narrative, after the fact” (Rushkoff 36).  These disconnected moments of the houseguests’ lives create a choppy viewing experience, however the viewers do not mind this.  In present shock, in which we are living, people are now used to not having a sense of future or direction so the individual events in the house seem normal.

Another iconic part of Big Brother is Zingbot.  Zingbot is a robot that comes into the house every season to “zing” the houseguests.  The robot’s sole purpose in the house is to create drama.  It brings up houseguests’ pasts, secrets they have, and insults that would create tension.  Last season, Zingbot brought up the fact that a houseguest had a girlfriend back home, but he started a showmance with someone in the house.  This comment and the aftermath that followed allotted for at least ten minutes of the show.  The reason something like Zingbot would be created is due to the fact that in a presentist culture, we are living in a world without narrative so, “producers of reality TV must generate pathos directly, in the moment.  This accounts for the downward spiral in television programming toward the kind of pain, humiliation, and personal tragedy that creates the most immediate sensation for the viewer” (Rushkoff 37).  Embarrassing and degrading characters on the show attract more viewers and distract them from the fact that there is no narrative being told.

Big Brother’s catchphrase is, “expect the unexpected.”  The saying was coined due to the many twists the show throws at its characters to change the game.  Twists are just another way to add drama and suspense to a show that has no story being told.  Like video games and Game of Thrones, “the show is not about creating satisfying resolutions, but rather about keeping the adventure alive and as many threads going as possible” (Rushkoff 34).  The multiple changes to the game display the effort to keep the show interesting and engage the audience, which is hard considering it does not have a narrative to begin with.

Big Brother is a classic example of a show created out of present shock.  In this way of life, we do not look towards the future or have a sense of direction and instead focus on the moment.  The reality show incorporates different personalities and many twists to create drama between houseguests and engage viewers.  As Julie Chen always promises, “expect the unexpected.”

Works Cited

Rushkoff, Douglas. Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now. New York: Penguin, 2013. Print.

A Stylish Feast

Hemingway uses a specific style of writing his novel, A Moveable Feast.  He recalls his time in Paris through first person perspective. All of his memories and opinions of the people he met are from his own viewpoint.   A Moveable Feast is very detailed and conveys Hemingway’s feelings throughout the novel in every experience he has.  The tone is matter-of-fact because Hemingway is looking back on all his encounters and can write about them in a way in which he says it like it happened.  Hemingway goes into deep detail about every instance.  He includes street names, restaurant names, and every detail about the scenery where he goes.  These details allow us to experience Paris as he sees it.  Also, Hemingway uses polysyndetons often in his novel which is somewhat confusing by having so much information in one sentence.  As Hemingway works in a café, he, “went back to writing and entered far into the story and was lost in it.  He was writing it now and it was not writing itself and he did not look up nor know anything about the time nor think where he was nor order any more rum St. James” (Hemingway 18).  Hemingway’s style of including detail allows the audience to experience his encounters and make their own impressions of the people he meets.

            The chapters in the novel follow the time in Hemingway’s life and the events that transpire.  Because Hemingway is looking back at what happened, some details could have gotten mixed around and be portrayed differently than what actually happened.  The sequence of events, therefore, makes the story confusing and hard to follow.  Hemingway uses the seasons as a pathway for time, as well.  He sees spring as the best time of life while fall is leading to depressing times.  The occasions in A Moveable Feast are part of Hemingway’s prime time of life, or his spring.  Hemingway shows his opinions towards the seasons and how they affect life when he says, “you expected to be sad in the fall.  Part of you died each year when the leaves fell from the trees and their branches were bare against the wind and the cold, wintry light. But you knew there would always be the spring, as you knew the river would flow again after it was frozen… When spring came, even the false spring, there were no problems except where to be happiest” (Hemingway 39).  The seasons help portray how Hemingway feels about certain events.

            In AP Language, we study style in literary works and how style affects the argument made or the story.  Hemingway uses style in his novel, including polysyndetons and extra details, to help give personality to his work and put emphasis on certain parts.  The novel goes over Hemingway’s problem of writing a novel and writing something meaningful.  Hemingway goes over the difficulties he encounters when he meets the different writers and how to work with all of them.  A Moveable Feast is an autobiography because it goes over Hemingway’s own life in Paris.  The novel begins in the early 1920s when Hemingway is about 25 years old.  This is a time in his life when he meets many important writers and tries to develop his writing into something more substantial.

Works Cited

Hemingway, Ernest.  A Moveable Feast. New York: Scribner, 2009. Print.