Surreality TV

by Julianne Escobedo Shepherd

I was spending time with my boyfriend’s family last winter in a manicured, suburban area of Hollis, Queens, when his mother, Uma, began telling me vague details about her new favorite television show. Something to the effect of, “The father and sons are building a house for the family and herding goats in the mountains.” My interest was piqued—maybe this was one of the beautiful Telugu dramas she occasionally puts on, shows whose language I cannot understand but whose plotlines are plainly revealed through flirting eyes and brawny action. But then she pulled up YouTube and introduced me to a kind of reality television I had never seen before, so mundane and calming as to be soporific—yet subtly charged with the unmistakable contours of government repression.