Guilty Pleasures and Cultural Legitimation: Exploring High‐Status Reality TV in the Postnetwork Era

works and the emergence of digital technologies has led some observers to claim that contemporary American television is in the midst of its third golden age (the first two are associated with the 1950s and 1980s, respectively). While critics praise the literary qualities of shows like The Sopranos, The Wire, Mad Men, and Breaking Bad, reality TV “has inherited the rotten reputation that once attached to the medium itself” as shows like MTV’s Jersey Shore “still provide a fat target for anyone seeking symptoms or causes of American idiocy” (Sanneh). In fact, reality shows are largely omitted from discussions addressing television’s rising cultural status. Nevertheless, in the context of the criticism directed at reality TV as a genre, one basic cable network is frequently celebrated for producing television’s best reality shows. According to the trade publication Advertising Age, A&E is “the premiere destination for unscripted programs that are authentic and relatable.” In describing the network, a New York Times critic writes, “From Intervention and The First 48 to Beyond Scared Straight and Heavy, these are well made, compulsively watchable series” (Hale). By highlighting the ways in which these programs rely upon problematic hierarchies that equate classed notions of reflexivity with moral worth, this article argues that the relative legitimacy of Intervention and Beyond Scared Straight depends on these shows’ ability to extract middle-class-appropriate behavior from socially marginal participants.