Extreme-est Makeover: Mansion Edition

Reality television has become one of the most common forms of entertainment and by far has become one of the most popular forms of television. Nearly everybody has at least one reality television show that they watch when no one is looking. Reality television has a sort of reputation for what its showing and what goes on in the show. One reality television show that people don't consider their own little secret and that has a pretty upstanding reputation is Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. This show, apart from most reality television shows, focuses on a good deed, or an inspirational and motivational family or town or story. It has been criticized over the years for various reasons but remains an upstanding show. The inspirational stories, selflessness and dedication of everybody helping out, and the overall layout of the show give this show a good image and a good message to go along with it.

The Vardon Family after seeing their new home

The entire process of the show takes many, many months from start to finish. The casting process alone takes several months. Families must submit an application and when they hear back, if they do, it could be up to a year before they hear anything back. The show has specific guidelines as to which families they choose to build homes for.  This is done purposefully by the writers to have the most amount of drama possible for the viewers. The casting process, which June Deery talks about, is a large part of the making of an episode. They lean towards families that have financial difficulties, and whose homes are literally falling apart. They favor families who have children with disabilities or where the parents themselves have disabilities. The backstory of the family is important and is a large part of what makes the show so emotional and relatable. The Vardon Family for example, were chosen to have their home destroyed, and rebuilt to their personal interests and hobbies and they were also sent on vacation for a week while the team from Extreme Makeover: Home Edition came and built them another home. The family's "story" is that the two parents are both deaf and the youngest son is autistic and also blind. The heart wrenching situation of the family adds to the drama and to the emotional nature of the show.


The show's crew definitely is dedicated to the show and their bubbly personalities make it exciting to watch the entire show, even when they're just building the new home and painting drywall or installing windows. The show adds frankenbites of the cast members talking about finishing the home in time or messing something up that they were building in the beginning of the show to make the viewer want to watch the rest. It also plays little previews to the final reveal of the home and shows the enthusiasm of the cast members in that moment. The main show host, Ty Pennington, is the most enthusiastic of the crew and has the most contact with the families. He does a bunch of charity work and volunteering in his career and this show is just another outlet to give for him. The crew couldn't build a house in a week alone, so for each individual family, members of their community donate their time and effort and help out for the family. It shows how selfless people are to support a good cause and how amazing things can happen when people work together.

The crew yelling "Move that bus!"

The show is formatted the same for every single episode. In the beginning they focus on the family and the family's story and the difficulties that the family has faced. It is an emotional introduction and once you see the first few minutes, there's no going back, you're hooked. It draws in viewers and doesn't let go until the final reveal and the family's final reaction. After getting to know the family a little bit, the designers meet with each individual member and learn their hobbies and interests and what they want for a room or home. They pay special attention to fixing the family's difficulties in their lives and make the home as personalized and conventions to the family as possible. They then send the family on a week long vacation, which that in itself is an enormous blessing to these families. The first day that the family is on vacation, the team back at the hometown thinks of creative ways to demolish the house and knock it down. There are multiple cameras all around the yard of the home to catch every moment, they even sometimes show and include the cameramen in things in the show. This is to make the show seem completely real. They show the team working on the home throughout the week and show progress on certain areas of the home. At the end of the week, the family returns from vacation and the team has a huge bus parked in front of the family's new home. They all chant out the show's slogan "Move that bus!" In that moment, they use that line to heighten drama and include the viewers in the reveal of the home. The bus drives out of the way, revealing the enormous, brand new house that was built. The family's reactions are shown and again it becomes a very emotional show and draws viewers in.

Extreme Makeover: Home Edition is definitely reality television. It uses many of the same tactics of more mainstream reality television but it also incorporates very important concepts and shows a lot of good qualities in humans and in working together. The show teaches a lot to its viewers and shows people how fortunate they are, as well as being an extremely entertaining show with a very moving feeling.

Citations

Winslow, Luke. "Comforting the Comfortable: Extreme Makeover Home Edition's Idealogical Conquest." Critical Studies in Media Communication, vol. 27, no. 3, August 2010, pp. 267-290. Communication Source, doi: 10.1080/15295030903583549.


McCarthy, Anna. "Reality Television: a Neoliberal Theater of Suffering." Social Text, vol. 25, no. 4, Winter 2007, pp. 17-41. SocINDEX, doi:10.1215/01642472-010


Askew, Emily, "(Re)Creating a World in Seven Days: Place, Disability and Salvation in Extreme Makeover: Home Edition." Disability Studies Quarterly, vol. 31, no. 2, Spring 2011, pp. 10. Education Source, http://www.dsq.sds.org/.


Hutchinson, Rossie. "National Identity Remodeled: Being American on "Extreme Makeover: Home
Edition." International Communication Assiciation Annual Meeting, 2006, http://eds.a.ebscohost.com/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=20&sid=f98e50e2-85bb-44e3-9968-a26bdb5a4573%40sessionmgr4006&hid=4213


Schmidt, Samantha. "Adopted children accuse parents of kicking them out after winning "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition." The Washington Post, 17 Nov. 2016.

Madormo, Carrie. "The untold truth of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition." The List, 2015, http://www.thelist.com/35201/untold-truth-extreme-makeover-home-edition/