Beauty, surf, and rehabs.
Chattanooga is the most beautiful city in the world.
Are you happy that you invited Deb to Fashion Week?
MTV
Thats my whole life youve been on something.
Their kids have become walking, talking little humans.
There are complicated family dynamics, sensitive portraits of the struggles with shared parenting.
And there are the familiar telltale signs of living within the Reality Industrial Complex.
People have t-shirt lines, people travel to red carpet events.
One Teen Mom goes to Fashion Week, two more go to the Video Music Awards.
There is crossover continuity with greater Cinematic Universe of Reality TV.
Its a complex charm, occasional celebrity glitz sprinkled over living-room naturalism.
You get a pleasant feeling for places that the media can ignore.
(Chattanoogadoeslook cool.)
One of the Dads, Gary, walks the carpet outside the VMAs.
A journalist asks him: Anything you’re free to hint aboutTeen Mom?
If people live on reality TV for long enough, they will become famous.
They may become more attractive; you hope they get some money; you worry they lose themselves.
This was true on television before reality came along.
MTV
Diets, personal trainers, Malibu sun (or Malibu rehabs).
I cant claim any deep knowledge ofTeen Momhistory.
(I am now the person who sits on the couch next to our homes residentTeen Momexpert.)
MTV
How does it affect your child?
Describe, in single words, only the good things that come to your mind about your mother.
Even in parody form, this sounds invasive.
But it feels naturalthe producers are justthere, in the corner of the room, clothed like creative-class professionals.
And I know it sounds like Im making fun of this, but its a fascinating effect.
A reality TV show about teen mothers is nowsometimesa reality TV show about living on a reality TV show.
The producers themselves have become familiar figures.
Their appearance onscreenwhich started back in 2015should be a subtle change.
After all, the docusoap reality genre depends on artifice, which can be implicit but is always obvious.
In a typical docusoapyourHills, yourHousewives, yourKardashiansthe people onscreen dont acknowledge the cameras following them.
Once you know the tricks, you see the producers even when youdontsee the producers.
So thisTeen Momchange could just be a way to cut corners, making the editors lives easier.
Tabloids, Instagram, one adult film career.
It wouldve been fake to pretend that theywerentbeing followed.
(And good for them!
Bigger celebrities have made worse clothes.)
Their normal isnt our normal.
More real to acknowledge the unreality.
But the role that the producers play onTeen Mom OGis surreal, almost spiritual.
They are like psychiatrists on a perpetual house call.
Sometimes theTeen Momproducers resemble the eerie observers from theBlack Mirrorepisode White Bear, silent sentries holding cameras high.
When the producers are onscreen, the power dynamic is unsettling.
(Who picks the mood music?)
And then sometimes the producers are…like, us?
It was the first day of filming.
I was in the interview room with her.
Thats when I learned the most.
[to Amber]Id try and place myself in the house where youwere, to hear more.
Because I wanted to know even more.
Debate amongst yourselves whether this is a postmodern true romance or something much stranger.
(Their relationship has evolved quite a bit; google for spoilers.)
What I remember is the reaction shot onto Co-Executive Producer Kikis face.
you might watchTeen Mom OGfor the sincere emotionsor, sometimes, for the eerie trainwreckitude.
But the producers make a strange presence.
And, in one corner, the producer-castmate tension has exploded.
There were rumblings of issues between Farrah and her producer Kristen earlier in the season.
and Are you nervous about anything?
You recognize the prompting, can even see the direction Farrahs being produced towards.
(Farrahs in a recent/eternal feud with her mom; the details are Shakespearean and Lohanish.)
Farrah snapped: Kristen, I dont look at my life upside down and s on it, okay?
Im going to have a good day today.
It was a weird moment, and echoedFarrahs history of sparring with producers.
And on this weeks episode, Farrah lashed out at Kristen again.
Kristen said something like Im really not trying to get in your way.
Farrah concluded: F you and your excuses!
You could call this a meltdown, not Farrahs first.
HerTeen Momfuture isuncertain, and much about her seems indefensible.
But youre also aware that the producers are building up Farrahs meltdownas a story point.
Onscreen, Kristen looked confused and exhausted by the encounter.
But on some level, you have to figure that she knew this was gold.
So the producers freak me out, too: Are they guiding the cast, or trapping them?
Theres only one solution, really.
Answer at long last the eternal question: Who produces the producers?
