“Lives change. But family is forever.” These words dramatically fill the screen in the trailer for The Kardashians, Hulu’s new show following the lives of reality TV’s First Family. Thanks to “momager” Kris Jenner—who masterminded their move into TV with Keeping Up with the Kardashians—the Kardashian-Jenner clan has changed a lot since they arrived on our screens in 2007.
Back then, part of the Kardashian’s appeal was that they positioned themselves as “relatable.” They would recite various versions of “we’re just like every other family!” in media appearances, like their 2012 sit-down interview with Oprah Winfrey. Despite much evidence to the contrary—like the Oprah interview itself, or Kim’s $10m “fairytale” wedding to basketball player Kris Humphries, which ended in divorce 72 days later—their constant cycle of arguing and reconciling struck a chord with fans. Fifteen years on, the jig is definitely up. Their family is not “just like” ours. (And all it took was one billion combined Instagram followers, several multi-billion dollar companies and a “humble” mid-pandemic 40th birthday trip to a private island to make that crystal clear.)
E!’s Keeping Up with the Kardashians was a cultural phenomenon, but it wasn’t the first reality show of its kind. In March 2001, The Osbournes—a reality show starring Black Sabbath frontman Ozzy Osbourne, his wife and manager Sharon, plus two of their children, Kelly and Jack—premiered on MTV. It had a similarly transformative effect on the family, turning all of them into culturally relevant celebrities. This success inspired Jenner to team up with Ryan Seacrest to create a reality show about her daughters.
On reality TV, family is the great equaliser. We can determine whether the people we’re watching are similar to us and the dramas in our own lives. These shows also highlight that the families we see as aspirational from the outside might seem less-so behind closed doors. It’s an all-you-can-eat buffet of (mostly) guilt-free judgment.
The allure of family reality shows can be traced back to 1973, when the phrase “reality TV” was first used to describe An American Family, a show which documented the everyday life of an actual regular family. Ten million Americans watched as mum Pat complained about husband Bill’s cheating, grumbled about their lack of sex and then asked him for a divorce on-camera.
One year later, British spin-off The Family aired on the BBC. Eight million Brits tuned in to watch Margaret and Terry Wilkins, from Reading, fighting over their children, infidelities and finances. In 2008 Channel 4 aired The Family, an almost identical show following another family in Canterbury, filming them for 100 days straight to provide material for the series.
Particularly in the 2000s, reality TV that explored family dynamics involving children was often ethically dubious. 2007’s John & Kate Plus 8 starred a couple who had eight children, then messily divorced. The show ran for five seasons and was constantly dogged by allegations that its young stars were being exploited. MTV shows 16 & Pregnant and Teen Mom followed different families as they coped with teen pregnancies. Both shows were also accused of exploiting vulnerable teenagers. Channel 4’s Supernanny, which broadcast children’s bad behaviour to the world, might have seemed like a helpful show for parenting techniques at the time—but even with parental consent, it now feels like a breach of their privacy.
In the same era, US daytime shows Jerry Springer and Maury made spectacles out of family conflict and truly desperate situations. The UK’s answer to this format, The Jeremy Kyle Show, was described as “human bear-baiting” by a judge and eventually cancelled in 2019 after the death of a guest. Elsewhere, shows like Wife Swap fed into Brexit-style culture wars on both sides of the Atlantic, making entertainment out of pitting families against each other on the basis of class, race and culture.
Other reality TV formats underline the continued importance of family as an institution, albeit indirectly. On dating shows like Love is Blind, Married at First Sight and First Dates, contestants almost always have the same end goal: marriage and children. In the final week inside the Love Island villa, the finalists are introduced to each other’s parents to get their seal of approval. Only at this point do their TV romances start to feel real.
The aspirations of family life we see on dating shows are often quite conservative. Among the mostly white and heterosexual contestants, the age-old pull towards the traditional nuclear family unit remains strong. But reality TV also shows that, over time, the definition of what people consider “family” has begun to expand. Not only that, but the medium has played an active role in shifting perspectives.
This started with MTV’s The Real World, way back in 1992, which was the first reality show to put strangers together in an artificial environment. The show followed a group of young adults as they temporarily lived in New York together in one home, while being filmed non-stop. Two seasons later, The Real World featured Pedro Zamora, a gay man who was living with Aids. On the show, Zamora had a civil union that his roommates attended. By this point, the group had become a chosen family.
Today, shows like RuPaul’s Drag Race trade on a similar concept. “We, as gay people, get to choose our family,” RuPaul once famously said during an emotional elimination. But even on a glaringly heterosexual show like Below Deck, we can see familial dynamics developing between Captain Lee Rosbach and his crew. On Channel 4’s Gogglebox, husbands and wives sit and watch TV with sons and daughters, but we also see groups of friends on their sofas together. No type of grouping is considered more important than the other.
Reality TV needs to entertain. The D’Amelio Show, an eight-part series on Hulu, followed TikTok influencers Charlie and Dixie D’Amelio and their parents. The family were heralded as “the new Kardashians,” but their show was a flop. Perhaps teenage daughters in a happy nuclear family were just too normal to be exciting, even with millions of TikTok followers. The Kardashians, on the other hand, shows us a much more blended, complicated and often messy family situation. And despite prophecies of their decline, the show was Hulu’s most-watched premiere ever.
The Loud family, who viewers first met on The Americans in 1973, had a more interesting story off-camera. Son Lance became an LGBTQI+ activist, while Pat and Bill eventually moved back in together as “roommates,” but never remarried. Americans might not have been ready to watch that type of Kardashian-esque situation back then, but it seems like they are now. As Kris Jenner told her daughters on the new show: “never go against the family.”
