The Representation of Wives and Mothers in Reality Television & Representations of Race in Reality Television

These articles focused mainly on shows like Wife Swap or Extreme Makeover, shows that target mothers, wives, and middle class women. The article also mentions again that in the U.S. we tend to focus more on race than on class, as they do in Britain. The articles also categorized reality television shows into five main groups: Competition, where there are shows based on talent, money, and love; Crime Solving, where there are shows such as the First 48; Court Shows, where there are shows based on general courts, specific courts, and personality based courts; Docusoaps, where there are shows based on real people and shows based on celebrities; and lastly, there are Transformative shows that include physical make overs, celebrity based makeovers, houses being made over, and other things. This last category of reality television shows is the largest group that targets mothers, wives, and just women in general. There are constantly mothers/wives on Wife Swap that need to learn from the other family in order to transform themselves. Also, shows such as Extreme Makeover or What Not to Wear focus mainly on women that need to be made over in order to be socially acceptable by society. It seems the focus is always on transforming women, wives, or mothers. This may be driven by womens constant drive to be perfect or to be better than they are, as well as society's ever-demanding criteria for good looking women or good wives or mothers. It is quite interesting that we tend to focus so much on transformative television in the U.S. It seems as though we have an obsession.