Fiction or Reality?

Although drama TV shows are known to be largely fictional, the writers of each show can easily manipulate the audience’s perception of truth. After our class discussion on the episode, “The Monster At The End Of This Book” from Supernatural, it became clear that the writers determine the audience’s perception of reality. For example, the writers’ choice to highlight the fact that Dean and Sam are reading their own lives written out by a higher power makes the audience more aware of their own role in the show. This emphasis on the characters acting out a storyline that is pre-determined draws attention to the role of the audience watching actors play out a screenplay. This, along with the presence of demons and archangels, reminds the viewers that the show is fictional and the reality inside the show is designed by the writers and does not necessarily show the truth.

This portrayal of reality shown in Supernatural, which is clearly fictional, can be compared to another TV drama such as Grey's Anatomy, which although still fictional, is aimed to be more scientific. Grey’s Anatomy, which is supposedly showing the “everyday lives” of doctors in a normal hospital, shows life or death situations as a norm. The writers, while basing some of the medical cases on real ones, exaggerate and fabricate situations that to most of the viewers could be true without knowing much about medicine. These writers intertwine the realistic setting of the hospital and operating rooms with the dramatic personal lives of the doctors to allow the audience to live vicariously through the doctors and begin to blur the lines of true and false. Because the writers use a scientific background and most viewers are not actual doctors, the audience is usually unaware that what they are seeing is false.

While both shows most likely go through a similar process of writing and acting, Grey's Anatomy, because it's categorized under science drama and located in a hospital, seems to be more truthful, when it is arguably just as fictional as Supernatural. The writers of TV shows seem to now be able to sway the audience to believe an altered version of reality and can choose if and when to remind the viewers that the show is fictional. Therefore, the writers hold the power to determine what kind of truth they want to portray.