The Challenge- Blog project #1
The new season of "The Challenge."
For my first media blog project, I decided to write about one of my favorite shows of all time, MTV's The Challenge! This show is a guilty pleasure of mine; I get my dose of reality TV with all of the drama, steamy hookups, and competition all in one.
For those who are also Challenge fans, you may know that the new season just premiered on the 18th. Everyone is super excited because its titled "Dirty 30." Which basically means they're bringing in all of the cast members that play the DIRTIEST. It should be a great season filled with fake alliances, back stabbing, and amazing entertainment.
Unfortunately, I have not gotten the opportunity to watch the season premiere, so I will be basing my project on the season before, The Challenge "Invasion."
Last season of "The Challenge."
Description
The Challenge is shown on MTV on Tuesday night's at 9 PM. We typically watch it the following day once it hits OnDemand. This is definitely a reality competition TV show, similar to survivor, except The Challenge competitors get really nice mansions to live in and a never ending supply of alcohol to fuel their feuds.
It would be difficult to summarize just one episode of this show, so I decided I'm going to attempt to summarize the entire season with just the basics. To start out, 18 "underdogs," or contestants that have never won The Challenge, believe that they are the only ones there to compete, which meant there are no champions there to get in their way! Woo hoo! Finally no Cara Maria, CT, or Banana's to go against! (The best champions in Challenge history, in my opinion!)
CT and Johnny Banana's Cara Maria
Little did the Underdogs know, 8 of the best Champions were waiting for the right time to pounce and make an appearance. This was a huge twist for the Underdogs. Throughout the season there were a few romances that ended badly, there were many arguments, typical girl drama, and of course a bit of friendly competition.
By the last episode, the "final" was completed and we had our champions of the season. My man, CT, was the male champion once again. Ashley M was the winner for the females, and she actually came in as an underdog! It was a fantastic victory for her.
Ashley M
If anybody watches the show, you know that Ashley M is one of the most dramatic girls in the house and threatens to quit nearly every time something doesn't go her way. It's no surprise that her cast mates were always wondering whether she was champion material or not. People magazine did an interview with Ashley and spoke about her feelings after winning last season. Ashley made the comment that, "The whole season people looked down on me because they didn’t think I’m in shape, which I think is f—ing ridiculous ’cause I won two or three Challenges. And then no one wants to say that I’m a good competitor, which is insane." Well Ashley, you may have proven them wrong and showed your strength, but the dramatics have got to end.
Throughout my The Challenge viewing, there were multiple commercials that promoted anti-tobacco ideas. For instance, there's one that I've seen many times that promotes the hashtag prevent #CATmageddon. TRUTH is who created and distributed this commercial; it basically talks about second hand smoke and how it could potentially give your cat cancer which equals no more funny cat videos! I feel like the use of this commercial on MTV would be effective because it's mainly younger adults watching who relate to dumb youtube videos of cats, and obviously they also need to hear the dangers of smoking.
Analyzing
While analyzing this show, I realized that they really upsell the sexuality aspect of both the ladies and guys on the show. For instance, they often edit the show to present the girls dancing "dirty" while out and about drinking, or they show the guys shirtless and add in the slow motion and music to make it dramatic. The editors definitely play to the audience (young adults) and give them what they're looking for.
Below is a gif of CT, humping a chainsaw. Yes, you read that correctly. One of the challenges was to be the first person to saw through wood, and this is what he does. The editors put some music over it and slowed it down a bit, and THERE IT IS. Millions of girls swooning within seconds.
This show is very similar to pretty much any other shows that promote competitions in order to make it to the finals and win some cash money! For instance, I instantly think of Survivor and Big Brother. Both of these shows bring in multiple people who will compete to win, and at the same time, be voted off to lose their chance of moving forward. The obvious differences between Survivor and The Challenge would be that Survivor entails a whole different life while trying to compete; they have to build their own shelters, hike for fresh water, hunt their own food. Big Brother is also different in it's own ways; let's be real, BB has so many little details in it that for a person who isn't super into BB would get confused by all the plot twists that go down.
Interpretation
Character stereotypes are everywhere on this show. The major one that comes to mind is the typical "bad guy." In this case, that would be Mr. Johnny Banana's. He is known for going against his alliances and making moves that only benefit himself; which obviously has worked because he's won multiple finals. The most memorable "bad guy" moment would be in Rivals 3. Him and his partner won the final, but there was one last twist, they could either split the money or one could take it all and run... you guessed it, after an entire season of building his relationship back up with his rival, he took all the money and ran.
If I wasn't familiar with this show, I probably wouldn't get a very positive idea of U.S. culture from this show. A lot of it is partying, hook ups, arguing, backstabbing... typical dramatic reality TV! It would make me think that young people were looking up to the wrong ideas.
Evaluations
I truly enjoy watching this show, like I've stated before, I live for reality TV and this show gives me all of the things I'm looking for. One of the things that I don't like is how some of the seasons are set up, for example, on Invasion, only 2 champions could make it to the final and 4 underdogs were allowed in. I feel like it shouldn't have been set up like that and everyone should have had a fair chance of making it into the final.
I tried looking on Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic for reviews on The Challenge and I couldn't find any. Honestly, most of the reviews come from the fans themselves commenting on Facebook or other social media platforms. Most of it has to do with them not being happy with a certain cast mate, or feeling like a challenge was unfair.
I searched Entertainment Weekly for some type of review, but they only had "re-cap" articles.
Engaging
My boyfriend and I watch this show every week; and if we miss a week, then we watch two episodes the following week! I particularly talk about this show with two of my best friends, Emily and Kelli. They are both diehard Challenge fans, like the probably know more about it than I ever could.
I follow the show's Instagram account, as well as following multiple cast members on Instagram and Twitter.
The show itself doesn't post very often except for a day or two before it premieres just reminding folks to tune in, but many of the past cast members post often about the show. For example, @MTVBananas is always replying to his fans and tweets live throughout the show while it's airing. One of the things Banana's recently retweeted was a tweet from @carleyforniaaa saying "I still am not over @MTVBananas stealing the money from Sarah from Rivals 3." He retweeted that with a caption saying, "you might wanna look into getting a hobby..." which lives up to his obnoxious bad guy persona.
With him and other cast mates replying to fans, it keeps us intrigued and interested in the show even after its done airing.
Here's a little sneak peak into what the newest season is going to hold!
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