Reality TV presents plenty of moral dilemmas

Third-season cast member Ailea said she went on the show to “learn from” the other women and “from their mistakes, so when I came home I wouldn't be so aggressive and intense.”

Likewise, Ailea said that “maybe someone, somewhere can learn from our mistakes. I know there were a lot of mistakes made on the show.” Murray said that's one of the show's goals: to educate the cast and viewers about acceptable behavior, and to show the impact it can have on others.

“It's almost like they're looking at themselves in a mirror and they're seeing the kind of behavior that can get them into trouble,” Murray said. “We thought that if they did this, not only would the viewers enjoy watching these women who live their lives so unapologetically, but also potentially these bad girls could learn something from watching each other.”

That was true for Ailea. “I constantly had in the back of my head that my mom and my brother and sister were going to watch this.”

Take the morality test: Is it OK for everyone?
To determine when it's acceptable to break the rules of morality, Gert offers a test: “Would you be willing for everyone to know that they can break the rules in the same circumstances?”

On “Survivor,” then, lying, deceiving, back-stabbing, cheating, and other forms of immoral, rule-breaking behavior are acceptable, because everyone knows there are no rules prohibiting them, just like bluffing in a poker game, Gert said. “I would think that people who agree to go on these reality shows, if they were not an idiot, ought to know that a lot of people think that things are allowed.”

"Survivor" host Probst said players who are willing to engage in that behavior “have an advantage; they don't ever feel they've compromised themselves. If you believe your word is everything, no matter what, then playing Survivor will be more difficult,” he said.

Gert said that people who break the rules without being willing to let others behave in similar ways means “you think you're special in some way” and “making special exceptions for yourself.”

Murray said he's guided by similar thinking. “If I'm walking down the street and I run into a cast member, someone who has been on one of my shows, I want to be able to go up and shake their hand and feel comfortable meeting them, knowing that we treated them well. If I had to run around the corner and avoid them, that might indicate that I wasn't treating them fairly,” he said.

The Ruthie incident: Drunk driving on ‘Real World’
He also said his producers have a responsibility to stop behavior that violates Gert's first five rules. “Our directors and producers are under a standing order, if they think someone is going to hurt themselves or hurt others, to step in, and they try to. Sometimes things happen in such a way that it can't be immediate.”

On the eighth season of “Real World,” set in Hawaii, a cast member drove drunk as cameras watched. “Certainly with Ruthie (Alcaide), when we realized when she was driving under — having had a drink, we intervened and pulled her over and got her out of the driver's seat as quickly as we could,” Murray said.

A show's audience dictates how morally judgmental its content will be. “Certainly with ‘The Real World,’ because that show is aimed at a 12- to 24-year-old audience, it's very important with that show that when people behave in an aberrant manner that you try to show the consequences of that and try and show any growth and learning from having had those consequences,” Murray said. “With ‘Bad Girls’ (which targets viewers aged 18-to-34) it's a slightly different situation.”

At the very least, then, reality shows prompt viewers to consider these questions. Probst said that contributes to the show's popularity. “I believe one of the big reasons ‘Survivor’ has been so successful is because of the question of integrity. It forces you to ask yourself, what would you do in the same situation?”

Andy Dehnart is a writer who publishes reality blurred, a daily summary of reality TV news. Find him on Facebook.

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