Editing Analysis

One of the most interesting ways that editing is used in media is the use of it in reality television. Although I do not watch a lot of reality television, one of my guilty pleasures is watching Real Housewives, one of the most infamous reality television series currently airing. It does not matter what franchise of the series, if it is Real Housewives, then I watch it. However, it is quite obvious that the editing of series such as Real Housewives does not always genuinely reflect what happened during filming. I have noticed this even before studying for this course, and I am sure many critical viewers notice the same. Specifically with the trailers aired for season premieres or finales. I re-watched a couple of trailers from Real Housewives of Atlanta and Real Housewives of New York, the first recently finished airing their latest season and the last is currently airing. In the trailer for Real Housewives of Atlanta, just like in many trailers, one of the housewives yells in the face of an anonymous bystander that "She is not doing well, bitch!". This scene was turned into an array of memes before the season even aired. As a viewer, I hypothesized which housewife she was yelling at and how bad the altercation was going to get. However, the latest episode contained that scene, and it is proof that the editing displayed the scene in a much more dramatic tone that it actually was. In "reality", she was simply quoting what she would say to another housewife to a random friend who happened to be at the party. She was not actually yelling the now infamous line to anyone, just practicing for a fight that never happened. Editing obviously knows that viewers gravitate towards drama, and they used it to their advantage. In relation to how the composition of the remainder of the trailer went, it is edited seamlessly in the trailer as if all of the argument went down at once. The housewife that loyal viewers would assume was being yelled at in the previously mentioned scene is shown afterwards, but in a completely different scene with no relation to the argument shown. In essence, the show is editing random clips together into one composition to attract viewers but it does not do so in a way that is truthful to the events themselves.