Awkwardness on Dutch television A research to identify the construction of on-screen awkward moments in nine contemporary Dutch reality-based television programs Author: Thomas de Boer University of Amsterdam Student number: 10764976 Master’s Thesis E-mail: [email protected] MA Television and Cross-media Culture Supervisor: Dhr. dr. J.W. Kooijman Professional track - documentary Second reader: Mw. dr. J.C. Hermes June 2017 2 ABSTRACT Awkwardness has become a very popular form of humour in our society. Not only in real life, but on-screen as well. In this thesis nine reality-based programs of the Dutch television landscape are analysed on the awkward moments they show and how these moments are constructed. The different positions of respectively the maker, the subject and the viewer are all examined in relation to the construction of awkward moments. Drawing upon genre theories and the book on awkwardness of Jason Middleton, this thesis identifies how awkwardness is constructed in contemporary reality-based media products. Awkwardness is a strong, affective narrative tool that is used commonly, either intended or unintended. Keywords: awkwardness – conventions – genre – reality TV – humour – ordinary – social norms – Dutch television 3 Foreword I am writing this foreword of my thesis, the day of Donald J. Trump’s inauguration as the next President of the United States. It is no joke, it really happened. Something totally unexpected happened. The orange clown, who had the most minimalistic argumentation ever during his campaign last year, became the President of the United States. Apparently a man who said “Grab ‘m by the pussy!”, who starred in Wrestlemania 231 and who denies climate change, is able to be elected as the most powerful leader in the world. And to be honest, that really ís a little bit awkward, if you ask me. Although my thesis is not finished yet, I felt the urge to write my foreword on this historical day. As a curious student and (world) citizen, I was of course interested in the campaigns of both Trump and Clinton. Now, after more than a year of die-hard campaigning, the elections are over and Donald J. Trump won. Despite of the fact that millions of people totally disagree with this outcome, there are reasonable explanations for his win, sadly enough. Lots of people were angry, did not like the way Barack Obama ran their country, and wanted a radical change. Trump fed this anger with his bullying rhetoric, his ridiculous statements and unorthodox performances. With the knowledge we have now, we know that this is a joke that has gone badly out of hand. But, to be honest, till Election Day, it was actually quite entertaining to watch him act and speak. Though his statements and actions crossed some social norms and were mostly painful and disturbing to hear, I kept watching the debates and videos on the Internet. It then struck me that this it showed great similarities with the subject of this thesis, awkwardness. Awkwardness is often painful to watch as well, but it has been a major form of humour in television series, documentaries and other reality based media formats since over two decades. Although awkward moments make us cringe from time to time, they also generate laughter and entertain us often. This thesis will show that awkwardness is an important, strong narrative strategy in contemporary visual media. The analysis shows that this is also applicable on the Dutch contemporary television landscape, by examining different television programs. Before you start reading, I want to thank a few people, who have helped me during my long period of writing, struggling and thinking. First of all, I want to thank Jaap Kooijman for his supervision. I also want to thank my fellow students, family and roommates for constantly motivating me to keep going. Special thanks as well for the Icelandic band ‘Kaleo’ who inspired me to write with their album A/B. Lastly, I want to thank my beautiful girlfriend Esther for believing in my ability to write this thesis. I hope you enjoy this interesting and sometimes awkward thesis. 1 Watch the clip on Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NsrwH9I9vE 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION: ON-SCREEN AWKWARDNESS IS POPULAR 6 1. CONTEMPORARY DUTCH REALITY-BASED TELEVISION AND ON-SCREEN AWKWARDNESS 10 1.1 Reality TV, ordinary people and genre conventions 10 1.2 Awkwardness on screen 13 1.3 A triangle of maker, subject and viewer 18 2. AWKWARDNESS AS A DELIBERATE STRATEGY OF THE PRESENTER 22 2.1 De Week van PowNed 24 2.2 Nog Meer Voor Mannen 28 2.3 Streetlab 32 2.4 Conclusion of the chapter: to shame or to be shamed 34 3. AWKWARDNESS AS AN UNSTABLE FANTASY BETWEEN SUBJECT AND MAKER 38 3.1 Love At First Kiss 40 3.1.1 Behaviour of the subjects 40 3.1.2 Strengthening of the awkward moments by the editing and format 45 3.2 De Rijdende Rechter 46 3.3 Man Bijt Hond 50 3.4 Conclusion of the chapter: eccentric behaviour in the spotlight 53 4. PRANK TELEVISION AND RADICAL AWKWARDNESS 56 4.1 Ushi and van Dijk & Bananasplit: prank formats 57 4.2 Ik heb het nog nooit gedaan 61 4.3 Conclusion of the chapter: prank formats and radical awkwardness 63 5. CONCLUSION 66 BIBLIOGRAPHY 70 MEDIA LIST 72 5 Introduction On-screen awkwardness is popular It’s Saturday night 8 pm, the 7th of May in the Netherlands. More than a million people are seated on their couch to watch the first episode of the renewed series of Idols (RTL 5, 2016- present). The well-known tune starts and the two new presenters welcome the viewer. The jury is introduced, including Jamai Loman, the winner of the first season of Idols, and soon it is time for the first auditions of the new season. One of the contestants the viewers get to see is Betty, a normal, but little shy, young woman. Through editing, tension is built up till the start of her performance. First she tells the presenter about her aspirations to become a singer and next, her boyfriend is interviewed about her talent, saying that he does not hear her sing that often, but that he believes in her talent. When Betty starts singing in the audition room, it becomes clear that she is not going to be the next Idol. Immediately after her first notes Martijn Krabbé, member of the jury, cannot control himself and starts laughing. During the whole song, Krabbé settles himself under the jury desk, in order to control his laughter. When Betty is finished, Krabbé crawls back upon his seat and says: “Dear, dear Betty, you sound like you are singing through a snorkel.” Jamai adds: “With diving goggles on, ha ha.” Betty accepts the feedback and does not show much emotion. After the other jury members agreed that it was not good enough to proceed in the competition, Betty accepts the rejection and leaves the room. Many viewers probably remember, and have seen, the first series of Idols, which aired from the year 2002 till 2008. The format’s two successful ingredients back then were the auditions done by talents (rough diamonds) and the weird, bad, awkward auditions. Now, with the revival of Idols in 2016, nothing has changed, except for the jury, presenters and the decoration. The awkward and stunning auditions are still the important ingredients of the program and Betty’s audition is a good example of that. Other than The Voice of Holland (RTL, 2010-2017) or Popstars (SBS, 2008-2011), Idols gains its success partly from this awkward entertainment. That was the case in 2002 and even more in 2016. However, that is not much of a surprise, because awkwardness is undoubtedly popular these days as well on-screen as off-screen (Kotsko 2010: 4-5, Middleton 2014: 18-19.) Young people, all over the world, often scream “awkward” when a clumsy situation happens and in the Netherlands the word was even determined by a small group of people to be the “Anglicism of the year 2013”. MTV aired a teen comedy series on television called AWKWARD (MTV, 2011-2016) and on YouTube prank channels or ‘try not to cringe’ 6 challenges are more popular than ever. Comedy series such as Modern Family (Comedy Central, 2009-present) and JEUK (NPO 3, 2014-2017) are driven by awkward humour and even in documentaries and reality TV awkwardness has become a popular narrative aspect. With programs as Streetlab (NPO 3, 2015-present), Man Bijt Hond (NPO 1, 1999 -2015), Ik heb het nog nooit gedaan (RTL 4, 2013-2014) and Idols (RTL 5, 2016-present) awkward encounters have become a significant part of the Dutch television landscape. Despite this increased popularity of awkwardness, there have not been many authors willing to write about awkwardness as a social phenomenon in general, let alone awkwardness on screen. Given the fact that it has become a popular buzzword and a strong affective and frequently used narrative aspect, this seems odd. Media scholar Jason Middleton cited in his book on awkwardness that the word was frequently used to describe the loss of presidential candidate Mitt Romney in the 2012 US elections and his failure to connect with voters (Middleton 2014: 19). A similar situation occurred in the Netherlands, when the news program PowNews decided to frequently target politician Job Cohen with difficult and unconventional questions. Cohen clearly could not handle the reporters of PowNews and made the interviews often awkward, while other politicians such as Alexander Pechtold or Geert Wilders did not.