Survivor collapsed the line between content and advertising and bent reality for drama

Evidence

Burnett’s idiosyncratic and often cynical views on unscripted television set the new standards for the entire industry. First, product placement became integral to the format. Burnett personally pocketed a percentage of revenue from all the overt logo displays in Survivor. As journalist Bill Carter noted, “The appearance of products was anything but subliminal. Logos of running shoes, towels, even the occasional beer repeatedly popped up on the screen.” Even in a show about primitive living in nature, there was no line between content and advertising. Second, Burnett rejected traditional documentary ethics. Instead of relying solely on raw footage, he embraced “dramality,” reshooting scenes as “do-overs” and using stand-ins for aerial shots. Audio snippets, dubbed “sweet-and-lows,” were layered into scenes to bend reality to better fit the storylines. — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 232

Categorization

• DEFINE: ‘Dramality’ is Burnett’s coined term collapsing documentary and drama — useful as a cultural vocabulary artifact.