Seven seasons of the bad girls club, an american television series: a study of episodes, characters, sequence, and narrative

Reality television programs attempt to showcase people in everyday situations. In the recent past, the genre has boomed and changed the landscape of television networks. Moreover, many reality shows continue to focus and reinforce the traditional race and gender based stereotypes, as reality programming continues to dominate television ratings. This paper explores and compares various episodes, cast choices, scenes and other issues within the context of the seven seasons of the ‘ The Bad Girls Club’ a reality television program aired on Oxygen Network. In addition, the paper also showcases various negative stereotypes.

In principle, to understand the BGC program, examination of the production is important because it inserts a text to the culture from which they are produced. Oxygen’s Bad Girls Club gives an oppositional reading and interpretation of the show from a racial and gender multiculturalist point of view. While the show attempts to rehabilitate women, the program ultimately invites the viewers, mostly young girls, and men, to ‘ gaze’ at its behavior under a blurred lens. Mostly, the women verbally and physically fight with each other in bars and clubs, consume alcohol, and take lavish trips to exotic locations. However, these proclaimed ‘ bad girls’ are supposed to change their behavior and accomplish their specific goals by the end of their three-month stay in a luxurious mansion.

As part of ‘ zero violence tolerance policy,’ these bad girls are not supposed to fight or engage in violence with each another or the production team. However, when Ripsi blackouts and attacks Jodie and Kerry, the convincing “ Southern Belle” from Nashville, she is removed from the show only five days to production. This allows the show to produce a new stereotype and stigma for violent ‘ bad girls.’ However, by framing the women who are aged 21 to 35 as girls, BMP productions condones and glorifies these immature young women’s outrages behavior. Moreover, the show also sends a negative message to young girls, that it is okay to act like a “ bad girl” since older women in their twenties and thirties are rewarded with camera time. As such, this program portrays a bad girl as one who knows what she wants and knows how to get it. She makes her rules and offers no apologies. A bad girl blazes her trail and removes obstacles that come her way.

In this reality show, these women coded as bad girls are usually minority women cast to portray to the public that “ bad girls” are blacks. Racial is evident in this program; for example in season one, two black women are initially cast (Ty and Leslie) on the show, African American cast member Andrea Laing only appears as a replacement “ bad girl” for Ty. In addition to season five, African American Catya Washington was cast because she represented the money hungry, gold digging stereotype. In season seven, there are also two black women (Tiara Hodge and Nastasia “ Stasi” Townssend), two Puerto Rican women ( Priscilla Mennella and Angelic Catillo), and Iranian (Tasha Malek), and some other white girls.

In brief, Oxygen’s ‘ The Bad Girls Club’ is a reality television program that reflects on issues of gender and racism in America to its audience. While the intent of the show is to help women grow and change their behavior, it has instead developed into a program that portrays women as violent and promiscuous.