Humanities Honors Program

Reality Television is often regarded as a mirror to society; a feedback loop of media sustained by and produced for its audience. In just two decades, it has transformed the television industry by establishing not only a unique production culture but by also participating in culture production. Through its purported depiction of “reality,” it has been able to serve as a rich site for studying social, political, economic, and cultural trends. Further, where secrecy is a vibrant part of this entertainment sector, the use of Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDA) has flourished. While a plethora of works study the television industry, the rising popularity of the genre, and the crucial role NDAs played leading up to the #MeToo movement, there is a lack of academic discourse surrounding a synthesis of Reality Television and NDAs in the present era. My thesis seeks to remedy this gap by analyzing the industry’s harmful labor practices paired with its use of NDAs in an increasingly digital age by conducting a case study of a recent controversy: Season 25 of The Bachelor. I conducted the study by examining critical media scholarship, television footage, interviews, trade publications, social media posts, as well as NDAs and legal sources. I found that the Reality Television industry has dominated the culture industry and has influenced numerous spheres of collective culture in tandem with harmful labor practices being silenced by confidentiality agreements. My thesis concludes that the use of the NDA has codified and perpetuated an ongoing and legalized system of racism not only within the industry but for the consumption and normalization of American audiences.