- Find at least two artifacts that you feel might comprise of a genre
This is a trend occurring for TV channels everywhere: reality football. Primarily supported by Netflix, reality football started becoming popular after other, more feminine, reality shows became popular. Some of these shows are, for example: dance moms, pageant kids, the bachelor, the bachelorette, final five (gymnastics competitions), skin wars, and so forth. All of these pre-existing shows laid the ground work for this revolutionary ‘manly’ genre to occur. Reality football is sweeping the nation… but what traits do these shows hold? What commonalities to they really have?
Well, Here are a few artifacts I think have some similarities:
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Last Chance U is a documentary series produced by Netflix. The series focuses on the football program at East Mississippi Community College. The title of the series refers to the fact that many of the players recruited to play at EMCC have been removed from Division I rosters due to academic or disciplinary issues, and playing at the junior college (JUCO) level is their “last chance” to prove themselves and return to Division I. This focuses on the coaching style, and the players.
Coach Snoop is a Netflix show about Snoop helping under privlidged children through athletics, because of his own rough upbringing. He created a football league for inner city children to keep them off the streets and out of trouble. This show follows his journey through the creation of this program.
Friday Night Tykes is a docuseries about youth beginning their journey through football. It is based in the cutthroat world of Texas football and demonstrates the demands that elite football players endure through a young age.
All of these shows have the following in common:
- They are about Americas favourite past time! Football!
- They have an aggressive coach.
- There is adversity to over come.
- Parents.
- University.
- Being from the inner-city, and growing up poor.
- There is an issue regarding race at some time or another.
- There are wins, and there are losses
- There are difficult teammates that have to be dealt with.
- These shows are relatively in the same time period.
- They are documentaries, meaning they are about real people
- They are episodes (not movies, and they usually have more than one season)
- Girls screw it up somehow (annoying, but a constant in this genre)
But what does this mean…
To generic descriptive criticism, there is only one thing left to analyze, which is the viewer/audience:
This genre has gained popularity through its inspirational nature. It is a pathos appeal (to pull from Aristotle’s rhetoric) in that it uses true heart-wretching stories to captivate viewers. There is no doubt this genre is gaining popularity because of this. New shows are getting released monthly with the same theme: football and reality. The viewership is what makes this genre so interesting, often most viewers support it, but in turn other viewers find it disgusting that people invest this much of their lives into a sport, yet, they continue to watch the show!
Reality football is taking America by storm, but honestly, I’m more of a hockey fan…
#GoOilers
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