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Pay attention

One of the really cool things about Lost is this: if you're paying close attention to matters like quotes, character arcs and familiar faces, you'll be rewarded. Well, what if the same close eye to detail was applied to shows like Jose Luis: Sin Censura or Secretos Houston?

A few weeks ago, while watching Jose Luis, I noticed a familiar face as a guest. Months before, there was an episode where the same reaction shot was inserted over and over again. The shot included a light-skinned, young Hispanic woman in the audience looking rather startled. This shot was used about five times in the same show and I found this to be rather hilarious.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago and here comes out this scantily-clad guest walking around like she's in Dolemite's entourage. Looking a little closer, I realized that this guest was the same person that was in the audience in the other episode. Nevermind all the staged hidden camera shots, I wonder how often they recycle people on the show.

On a recent episode of Secretos, the "climactic" confrontation scene looked more like a scene out of an Ed Wood film. Confronting a troubled teen involved with gangs and drug dealing, he looked like he was in the middle of a fight when the Secretos crew showed up. The deal was, instead of what was supposed to look like blood on his face looked more like lipstick. Sure, this was funny to me, but what's scary is thinking about the numbers of people that think this is real.

These shows are not like WWE wrestling where exaggerated entertainment is greatly implied. Then again, there are no claims that the stories are true or the guests are not acting. That's the problem with "reality" shows. If you film fictional matters in a documentary style, people think this is real life. As Nick Lachey told Rolling Stone a few months ago, when your life becomes a reality show, it ceases to be reality.

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