The passion of mediated shame: Affective reactivity and classed otherness in reality TV

Shame, passion and mediation

A common characteristic of shame is its profound societal trait, combining an internal negative judgement of one’s own inabilities and anticipated assessment of how one will be judged by others. As shame is the perceived experience of the self being exposed and judged through the eyes of others, it is a key aspect of human behaviour and a fundamental element to the constitution of selfhood. While it realizes the subjects’ relation to itself (I am ashamed of what I am), it is before another, imagined or not, that we are ashamed (Ahmed, 2004; Nathanson, 1987; Probyn, 2005).

An essential element of the shaming process is hence the exposure to a third party or the public eye. Since the painful feeling of being exposed often is coupled with an urge to hide, it is an intense sensation associated with looking and being looked at (Ahmed, 2004). The strong desire for concealment, to cringe before the eye of the world and to hide the body, is evident in shame’s typical facial and bodily display – the averted gaze, the lowered head. Because it is so socially ingrained and so viscerally felt in the flesh, its physical characteristic renders it an affect particularly well suited for tele-visuality and its favouring of easily read corporeal signs that are to confirm the display of emotional authenticity (Hirdman, 2011).

While shaming is always in some sense about pointing out, exposing misconduct and holding someone accountable, its different implications vary according to media genre and context. Within investigating journalism, and news reporting, the exposure of wrongdoings of organizations, authorities and individuals is an important factor in reinforcing journalistic identity and ideology, manifesting its right to investigate, interrogate and sanction (Danielsson, 2013; Ehrat, 2011). As the deed is exposed to the public, the story changes direction, leaving the shamed – shamed. In contrast, reality formats employ shame as an affect that sets the narrative wheels in motion, presenting it as a tool for inner revelation and personal transformation taking place before the camera.

In order for shame to work as a dynamic process within the narrative, its social trait is underscored, that is, its linkage to desire and to regain what shame has withdrawn. Since the shame experience typifies the threat to any social bond between a person and their social environment, it resonates with primary fears of abandonment and with a human desire for belonging-ness. A distinct characteristic of how shame is displayed and made to make sense in many reality shows is its auxiliary or supplemental aspects. In his work on affect, Tomkins (1987) defines shame as an affect auxiliary, primarily connected to the positive affects of interest and/or excitement. As an affect auxiliary shame is only felt given that a prior desire for the other, for reconnecting, exists. Although the shaming experience blocks out any positive emotions and the world literally darkens, it nevertheless carries the intense craving to reconnect with the other, or the world, to recapture the relationship that existed before the situation became problematic (Tomkins, 1987). The innate activator of shame hence remains the incomplete reduction in positive affects and the hopeful, passionate urge to re-enter into the common. Probyn (2005) touches upon this passionate aspect of shame, stressing that ‘[shame] illuminates our intense attachment to the world, our desire to be connected with others’ (p. 14). This desire depends on asymmetric relations of power, where the one inducing shame also possesses the authority to withdraw the painful exclusion (Nathanson, 1987; Tomkins, 1987). Hence, the ones experiencing shame and the ones inducing shame are interlocked in an intimate relationship where the passionate aspect of shame is of essence. It is, in other words, the interconnection between shame and the passionate longing for approval that is being played out in reality shows where the possible future of being accepted is displayed in the pain of rejection.

While experiences and manifestations of shame seem to be universal, the specific behaviours deemed as shameful are dependent on cultural, economical and symbolic values attributed to different bodies under different circumstances. This is evident in the two initial phases of shame performance on TLT: the inducing and internalization of shame and their production of affective reactivity.

Affective reactivity and the inducing of shame

The inducing of shame follows a strict pattern on the show. While a voice-over introduces the participants and informs viewers about the nature of their consumption behaviour, how huge their loans are and how people in their vicinity are affected, they are shown carelessly strolling around shopping malls, visiting beauty parlours or indulging in smoking, drinking soft drinks and eating pizzas.

Voice-over: ‘ – Despite huge house loans [they] continue to prioritize buying candy, nicotine and home styling products’./‘When the money is finished they don’t care to open bills from the taxman, instead they borrow from their families’. ³

During the opening sequences, participants frequently address the camera affirming their careless disposition: ‘ – Well, we rather buy pizza and candy, than open bills or letters from the The Swedish Enforcement Authority (laughter)’./‘ – Well, we never even open the bills …. It’s boring’./‘ – When you see something nice you just want to buy it (big smile)’. ⁴

The apparent gap between participants’ emotional unperturbed state and information of their catastrophic financial situations as well as the consequences of their behaviour is of course unlikely to produce a sense of empathy, of viewers’ ‘feeling with them’. As pointed out by Zillmann (2006), affect-inducing circumstances may be manifested in direct witness to emotional events, by witnessing events that are in themselves capable of inciting affective reaction or events which from the audiovisual presentation are contextualized as to evoke certain responses, empathic or non-empathic. These initial scenes affirm the latter, the situational context and foremost their ‘inappropriate’ emotional reactions to the facts and numbers being laid out for the viewer. The verbal information of their economical ignorance and how it affects a third part delivered by the voice-over produce a disturbing contrast to the visualization of their apparent carefree enjoyment in activities of spending and/or eating/drinking. Their positive emotional attitudes are often constructed as indicators of their ignorance and lack of agency and, as such, the driving force for inciting non-empathic reactions whether of contempt or dismay at their moral failure as parents, friends or family members. By presenting information and responses that are deemed as immoral and irresponsible, for instance ignoring their children’s need for new clothes, the show primes viewers to engage in affective reactivity of disliking or detesting, an affective reaction opposed to the participants’ relaxed appearances and statements. It is also worth noting that in a society where consumerism is increasingly seen as a mark of success, the participants’ desire for consumption is in itself turned into a source of contempt. In accordance with this, the implicit ‘sticking’ of disdain during the opening sequences occurs when they are expressing emotions other than distress, sadness or gratefulness and are engaging in ‘normal’ middle-class consumerist behaviour.

Although empathy has been defined in a variety of ways, it is often described as the ability to put oneself in others’ situation and experiences. In this way, our empathic responses derive from a process that yields a considerable degree of affinity between others’ emotional experiences and our emotional reactions to them (Coplan and Goldie, 2011). While the ability to experience empathy differs greatly between individuals, information about the incitement of an affect in others has been recognized as of dominant significance for our potentially empathic response. If a person or a group’s behaviour is portrayed, and judged, as debauched, a disposition of disliking is usually formed, evoking non-empathic emotions such as disgust, irritation, indignation and/or contempt (Zillmann, 2006). We are, in other words, not likely to experience empathy when the contextual circumstances presented to us are alien to concepts of feeling with or for someone. The two-way traffic of affective reactivity, the displayed economical circumstances and emotional expressions following these, is hence a crucial element in the process of experiencing emotional distance to participants on the show.

Internalization of shame

After the introduction of the participant’s lack of economic (and moral) responsibility and the state of affairs has become clear to viewers, the financial experts arrive at their home, taking seat at the kitchen table where the inducing of shame is executed. Here, the two experts, seated next to each other, talk in what must be labelled as an insulting manner. As the participants get their incapability to cope financially and their lack of agency pointed out to them, both experts’ work of face and work of tone signal dismay and contempt. Their faces are stern, at times almost disgusted, their tone of voice is harsh, either sarcastic or incredulous (‘We’ve never seen anything like this’ and so forth). After a few minutes, the participants begin to show signs of deep discomfort, twisting in their chairs, looking away and falling into silence. What we see here is what Tomkins (1987) refers to as the severe combination of shame, distress and fear, resulting in shame magnification. The multiple sources of shame, the verbal statements, the tone of voice and facial expressions, fortify the affective projection of contempt.

As the participants’ selves are called into question and turned into an object of ethical inquiry, the inducing of shame proceeds into the internalization phase. From the acknowledging of inadequacy and wrongdoings, they are expected to enter, and usually do, into shame, illustrated by their body stature: bent down heads, shivering shoulders and/or tearful breakdowns. An example of a typical exchange between the experts and, in this case, Tobias (husband of Veronica) goes as follows

- Why haven’t you done anything about this?

- It feels pointless, meaningless …

- How can it feel meaningless when you have three children.?

- Well, one wants to … but … (mumble) have no good explanations.

- You have also imposed on relatives!

- Hmm yes.

- How does that feel?’

- It feels … awful.

- Can you look them in the eye at family reunions, Tobias?

- No! Tobias covers his face in his hands.

- What’s going round in your head right now?

- I’m thinking of grandpa …. Tobias starts to sob. ⁵

The relationship between acknowledging wrongdoings and experiencing shame is essential for the affect becoming a passionate judgement directed inwards. As the body of Tobias starts to shrink, in an attempt to withdraw from the public eye, the camera closes up for an intense 1 or 2 minutes, turning the coupling of hiding and exposure of shame into a melodramatic climax. These ‘forensic detailing’ or judgement shots invite a reaction to the displayed reaction. It is also during these scenes viewers are most inclined to evaluate the emotional authenticity and make explicit affective judgement (Hill, 2005; Skeggs and Wood, 2012). Nonetheless, the affective reactivity derives not only from the witnessed shaming performance but also from the before viewed scenes where dismay and contempt at their behaviour have been established before the viewer. Arousing contempt and dismay preceding displays of the inducing and internalization of shame are ways of intensifying reactions to the shaming scenes, making viewers prone to experience discordant affective reactivity (cf. Zillmann, 2006). There is in other words an excitation transfer where the affect accompanying the scenes preceding the shaming mise en scénes will increase viewers’ experiences of non-empathic reactions to participants’ apparent emotional distress.

Mediated processes of othering are dependent on situational conditions where empathic sensitivity is lost and emotions between viewers and the ones observed are supposed to be discordant. Witnessing others who have in some ways violated established rules of social conduct being punished, or humiliated for their transgressions, does not call for empathic co-suffering. On the contrary, the experience could rather be one of relief, even joy, at witnessing these others being maltreated. Studies have also shown that when displayed causal circumstances construct negative affective dispositions, viewers’ empathy is not only absent but also opposite affects in relation to those witnessed in the others, that is, discordant affect has been observed (Zillmann and Cantor, 1977). To respond in a non-empathic manner might be seen as an appropriate reaction, when ‘[…] seeing aversive treatments applied to villainous parties and to seeing the impact of these treatments’ (Zillmann, 2006: 167).

So, the affective sequential order on the show may achieve two things. It might intensify viewers’ discordant affective reaction and, as a consequence, assessing the shaming as an appropriate treatment, where the participants are ‘getting what they deserve’.

Accepting and managing shame

However, shame sets the narrative wheel in motion not only by illustrating the experience of shame but also by offering shame as a vehicle for recuperation. During the performance of shame experiences at the kitchen table, transitory aspects of shame are presented almost concurrently. Mixed with the melodramatic shaming point and the display of emotional breakdowns are footages from outdoors where participants address the camera in a contained and non-affective manner, stating that their behaviour is indeed in need of corrections: ‘ – They [the experts] are absolutely right in what they say’. ⁶

Their body manner exhibits a stark contrast to their, frequently, sobbing self at the kitchen table, generating a double reflexive process where the ‘shamed self’ is not just witnessed by the experts and the viewers, but also by a self that is acknowledging and foremost accepting its shamed position. Crucially, the outdoor scenes foster a performance of introspection and reflection where the economical (and moral) crises are turned into, and consented as, a conflict within the participants. Through means of these self-referential clips, viewers are offered a visualization of the interdisciplinary corrections, and of the experience of the split self, so prominent to shame experiences for all of us.

By visualizing in this graphic manner the blatant acceptance of the shamed infliction, the shaming procedure is justified and legitimized, for both participants and viewers. The narrative then turns towards a story of personal development and growing self-knowledge, in accordance with a cultural model of intimacy where overcoming a range of emotions including fear, shame and guilt is presented as necessary for the true self to be revealed (Illouz, 2007). After they have in this way proven that they have the ability to self-scrutinize, and therefore to temporarily reduce shame, a performance of recuperation begins, involving selling furnitures, cars and changing eating habits, quitting smoking and the like.

Participants’ acceptance of fault and articulated willingness for correction allow for an affective reactivity more in concordance with the ones expressed by themselves which is often articulated as relief, gratitude and hope. This affective transition from negative to more positive appraisal of their behaviour is also dependent on the show’s framing of shame as an affect auxiliary. Through acceptance and adjustment, participants are offered release from shame’s disturbing impact, and the pain of rejection is suspended. The narrative of transformation and of recuperation is, nevertheless, counter-parted by that which not only blocks out engagement as identification but also keeps contempt alert, ready to surface. By persistently coupling their lack of knowledge and agency with a body governed by impulses, their lack is presented as a compulsive force, fore seeding any rational consideration. This implicates an almost Sybaritic body that governs the mind in instant needs of physical satisfaction.

By presenting an affective morality saga, the programme produces a narrative that reassembles yet distorts that of the melodrama. In TLT, there is no room for sentimental identification since innocence and virtue that usually construct the moral touchstones of the protagonist are absent. However, as in the melodrama, all participants assume primary psychic roles of parent and child, producing what Gladhill (1987) refers to as the melodrama of psychology. The exaggerated intrusive and condescending speech and the demand of compliance that suffuse participants on TLT comprise psychological implications of infantilization, which accentuate a sense of deficiency and undermines emotions of dignity, self-esteem, pride and confidence (Whitbourne and Cassidy, 1994). This resonates with McCarthy’s discussion of reality programmes as psychological arenas with the state, or here, the two experts, symbolically taking the place of an absent parent who doles out affection in a random fashion with no regards to the child’s need or desire. In this way, producing a subject ‘who reads every connection as an opportunity for abandonment and yet who is driven obsessively to ask for acknowledgment, affection, the meeting of needs […]’ (McCarthy, 2007: 34). The spatial location where the asymmetric power relations are played out, symbolized by the kitchen setting, carries, in this perspective, specific meaning. Being the heart of the home, it is the place for more intimate and familiar gatherings. In addition, the kitchen table is also a common place where individuals experience behavioural correction in childhood before a parent, how to sit, how to hold the hands, how to eat and so on. It is worth noting that when the order is restored, the participants and the experts are seated in the living room sofa, suggesting a spatial reference to shame’s transitory phases.

Affective dumping and classed bodies

The operation of sense-making resides in the intersection of affective discordant reactivity and the following transitory phases of shame on the show. The insistent forming of discordant affect associated with a classed body occupied with satisfying itself at any cost evokes resentment that at first might be inspired by apprehension and fear, foregrounding condemnation of the others’ actions and signalling that empathy is unnecessary and in fact inappropriate. Ferguson (2010) claims that reality TV often expresses both abject fears and hopeful fantasies about their topics, thus colliding with projective identifications, or what Brennan (2004) refers to as a process of dumping. While projective identification is a form of transmission that requires unconscious complicity (we let someone else know what we are feeling by making him or her feel the same way), dumping is having, in an explicit, and usually affective, manner, evacuated negative affect and depositing them in another. According to Brennan, this transmission is closely linked to a Westernized notion of individualism where the idea of affective self-containment is crucial. Moreover, this idea of self-containment depends on being able to project outside of oneself’s unwanted affects such as anxiety, depression, contempt and disgust, through a process of othering. Essential here is the moment of judgement:

[…] when I judge the other, I simultaneously direct toward her that stream of negative affect that cuts off my feeling of kinship from her [,,,] I make her into an object by directing these affects toward her, because that act marks her with affects that I reject in myself. (2004: 119)

In order for the dumping process to be realized, the other needs to accept, consciously or not, this negative disposition. Dumping hence is a dual process. It constitutes a passionate judgement directed towards the other in order to maintain a certain relational position: the subject’s sense of superiority and separation from the other, and it relies on the marked other to accept the negative assessments. Shame’s self-loathing aspects make it an affect well suited for accepting the dumping and turning the passionate judgement inwards as one is, in shame, also before oneself, ‘the bad one’.

Witnessing irresponsible consumers caught with their pants down helps solidify not just the myth of individual responsabilization; it can also be actively consumed as a marker of one’s social position as a member of the symbolic group ‘us’ united through an economical sensible attitude. To be on the consuming ends of imagery of shame affirms our difference from the ones being shamed (Kohm, 2009). Yet, this argument does not take enough account of the affective weight in the production of classed otherness.

Shame works as a way of not only disassociating ‘us’ from ‘them’ but also by concealing the affective operation of classed otherness. First, exposure to portrayals of others’ affective reactions in a context where emphatic responses seem inappropriate naturalizes the production of discordant affect. Second, the staging of shame as a vehicle for recuperation of value conceals the work of affectively produced and re-produced classed bodies. The illusion of relief offered by the transitory phases implicates that shame does not have to stick to bodies but can pass through. Yet, the re-entering into the common can never be fully realized since it was not there from the beginning. As pointed out by Walkerdine (2011), reality TV works affectively by mobilizing the history of shaming already inherited and passed down generations in families and in social, cultural and bodily practices, presenting a classed body that is always ‘ready and ripe’ for shame. In the programmes’ insistent claim that the conflict and solutions emerge from within the participants, shame remains an inherent feature of the lack assigned to them, a lack that can only be temporarily released.

According to Bauman (2006), reality formats crystallize in audiences the ‘rugged reality’ of modern fears by dramatically showcasing the dangers of contemporary life, of the constant possibilities for exclusion. The frightening scenario played out on TLT, is the prospect of exclusion from membership in civil society. The programme can from this perspective be said to ultimately present conflicting messages about the nature of economic control and the capitalist ideology. On one hand, it picks up and responds to contemporary worries about economical bankruptcy on a personal level, a loan-driven economy that gets out of hand, something we are nowadays experiencing on an international level of economic insecurity. On the other hand, while it reaffirms pervasive ideas about the nature of economic responsibility and moral responses, it simultaneously exposes the weakness in a society where the means of over-spending are at the hand of each and every one of us. Yet, by locating this potential fear in a specific classed other, TLT provides viewers with bodies on whom the dumping of negative affect can be effectuated, and hence kept outside oneself. By presenting participants as willing, accepting recipients for affective dumping, the horror of exclusion can be imagined, re-lived and contested. At the same time, the transitory phases of shame, or the narrative of redemption, justify discordant reactivity and judgemental affective projections, in this way reaffirming that the classed body will remain a body in need of external shaming.

The power of repetition

To draw attention to shame and class as a televised entertainment commodity is also to accentuate the repetitive power of affect operation. As pointed out by feminist scholars, it is through the repetition of norms, and social forms rather than by rational argument, that the world materializes and boundaries are produced (Brennan, 2004; Butler, 2011). And one might add, by the affective power invested in the familiar, in that which is present beyond articulation and that depend on associative links between images and verbal information, between viewers and the bodies on the screen.

Since class is foremost constructed by the unsaid, by our capability to ‘fill in the gap’, it is interesting to consider the work of associations in relation to emotional memories. In his work on neuroscience and the embodied mind, Damasio (1994) points out that the evocation of emotion via symbolic representations (images, sounds, texts) needs to be ideationally constructed. In other words, symbolic representations have to be translated through immense associative activity in the neural networks into mental representations. Witnessing and experiencing, on a frequent basis, strong emotions as those evoked by shame are likely to foster long-lasting connections between certain affective displays and associated affective responses. As strong emotional reactions are said to leave deep traces in our emotional memory, mediated spectacles of shame in relation to classed otherness facilitate our emotional memories of associated meanings, signalling in an almost automatic way when empathy is (un)necessary. When discordant affects consistently become morally sanctioned and associated with specific persons or groups, non-empathic reactions can become a highly automatic, implicit response. The mediation of shame, therefore, intrinsically links class and shame together, giving body and form to the un-named, to that which drives us towards affective judgements and to the un-making of subjects.