spinofflive
Sick of people screaming over being married at first sight and building houses? Terrace House is the show for you.
Sick of people screaming over being married at first sight and building houses? Terrace House is the show for you.

Pop CultureSeptember 10, 2019

Why Netflix’s Terrace House is TV’s sweetest reality show

Guest writer
Sick of people screaming over being married at first sight and building houses? Terrace House is the show for you.
Sick of people screaming over being married at first sight and building houses? Terrace House is the show for you.

Terrace House is so real that it can’t be anything but fake. Uther Dean writes about what makes the Japanese Netflix dating reality show so addictive.

Do you know what a parasocial relationship is? Because I promise that you’re in heaps of them.

Parasocial relationships are the ones that occur between you and the people on your screens. That real feeling but totally artificial intimacy you have with people in stories you hold close. You see into their lives and feel you know them, and that they kind of know you.

While YouTube personalities may deal in the biggest bulk of parasocial relationships, it’s reality TV that’s perfected it. Reality TV dismisses the world, to focus you on people and let you think that you know them. It’s a trick, yes. You don’t really know these people and they don’t care about you at all. But I don’t think that’s a bad thing. At its best, the increased empathy reality TV can build through parasocial relationships can be precisely the calming influence that we need in this increasingly frantic world.

All of which is to say that when I say Terrace House is my favourite reality TV show and that it trades solely in parasocial relationships, it’s not meant as a back-handed compliment. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that Terrace House would single-handedly make the case for the existence of reality TV if Masterchef Junior didn’t already exist (there is nothing purer than watching Gordon Ramsay help a crying child salvage a burnt dish, it’s the platonic ideal of television).

Terrace House is a Japanese dating show. Six people – three women and three men – move into a luxurious house in Japan (or, in one case, Hawaii). They sometimes date. Sometimes don’t. And you just kinda watch them. When it debuted in Japan in 2012 as Terrace House: Boys x Girls Next Door, it was a respectable hit. When Netflix came on board in 2015 as a co-producer and international distributor, it took off. It grew in popularity in Japan as well as building a cult audience across the world of people entranced by its hypnotically calm pace and serene tone.

The cast of Terrace House: Boys and Girls in the City.

It’s hard to emphasise just how blank a canvas Terrace House is. There are no challenges and there’s no elimination process – people choose to leave when they don’t have anything more to get out of the experience of being there. Some of the residents don’t end up going on any dates at all. They just hang out in their sweet-as house. There are no in-the-moment interviews, meaning our only insight into the residents thinking is through their interactions with each other and their friends. This is a wonderful innovation.

Terrace House is the first real masterpiece of parasocial entertainment. You really begin to feel like you know and care about these people. Even though they’re all aspiring models or entertainers who are only on the show to build a public profile, you feel close to them – not despite the lack of insight into their minds, but because of it.

It makes them just like everyone else in your real life: mysterious ciphers whose inner lives and intentions we can only fathom by puzzling out the few clues they give us person-to-person. You grow closer to them because you have to invent your own story about who they are. You’re not asked to relate or empathise with them, but to care for and look into them. This pays dividends when it comes to the dating aspect of the show.

The dating in Terrace House does have somewhat of a rigid formula to it: they hang out, one of them asks the other an “official” date, they go on several more, and one of them (always the man, *sigh*) asks the other to be their girlfriend. Sometimes couples stay together in the house, sometimes they move out. There’s an implicit final step in this formula which is when you Google them to find out that they’ve inevitably broken up and you find that you’re incredibly upset by this.

You’re upset because you cared about these people. The parasocial artistry of Terrace House erases the blatant artificial structuring of the romance plots. It breaks them down into giddy, heart-swelling moments, like people coyly confessing their attraction to each other, a couple holding hands for the first time, or a stumbling first kiss. This show has found an incredibly powerful drug in its ability to show audiences the low-key awkward delight of the early stages of romance. It’s just really nice to watch people like each other. It’s charming to see someone have a crush on someone else and not know whether they like them back.

The commentators, doing their absolute best/worst.

There’s a panel of commentators made up of comedians and actors who discuss the action of each episode. The feeling is very much like a bunch of friends gossiping about shared acquaintances and, when not occasionally veering down disappointing paths of mild misogyny, they can be incredibly charming.

It feels like an odd decision to have such an artificial construct, but the early episodes of Terrace House that didn’t have commentators show just how vital an addition they are. Without people snarking and breaking down what’s going on, Terrace House feels dry, claustrophobic and creepy. Having the panel there makes the world of the show seem more open, more welcoming, and more fun. They give you permission to enjoy the innate voyeurism of the show but also let you know you’re not alone in watching.

Terrace House’s greatest achievement is in how low key it is. With little on the line, there are no histrionics and no stakes. All the conflict feels like the real day-to-day conflicts of life: people obliviously hitting on people who just aren’t into it, a slight disagreement or miscommunication ruining a conversation, and people turning up at museums when they’re closed. These are the kinds of drama the show provides. Written down they don’t seem like much, but in the low impact world of Terrace House, they’re massive.

My favourite example is an event that goes down in the show’s history as ‘The Meat Incident’ which occurs on the first Netflix season Terrace House: Boy x Girls in the City.

Uchi, the holder of Terrace House’s infamous meat moment.

Uchi, a hairdresser, gets a gift of some wagyu beef from a customer. He saves it for a special occasion. Several days later, his girlfriend, Minori, and several other residents in the house eat Uchi’s “special meat” without asking him. When he finds out, he is devastated, crying and leaving the room.

It’s a moment that has a lot less to do with the actual facts of the “special meat” consumption than it does the constellation of factors around it. Uchi has worked his way up from the bottom, you can tell he feels a lot of pride in his hard work and the rewards it brings. Minori is still a student and doesn’t quite grasp the stakes of working for everything you have. They have only recently started their relationship and there are still clear stumbling blocks between them when it comes to communication.

She visits him in his room where he’s still crying, and they chat about how they don’t really talk anymore. The “meat incident” is not about the meat, it’s about their relationship. It’s amazing. It feels exactly like the problems of real life.

Which, I guess, is a long way of me saying that I like Terrace House because people on it cry as often as I do in real life.

Terrace House can also be as conflicted and contradictory as its residents. The gender politics of Terrace House are a particularly noteworthy point of tension, ranging from not great to actively gross. As much a product of the dating show format, Terrace House is also a product of the differing cultural norms of Japan. It’s entirely understandable why people wouldn’t want to engage with it, especially since it doesn’t seem to be moving with the times or learning as it grows. There’s a particularly unpleasant plot about women’s agency in relationships in the latter half of Terrace House: Opening New Doors, so I’d advise viewers leave when Tsubasa (the best person to ever be on the show IMO) does.

Tsubasa, the best person to ever exist on Terrace House.

Terrace House’s great success lies in how invisible its construction is. The cameras never move. People never address or acknowledge them. Fumbles are left in conversations and the cast rarely feel like they’re prompted to say anything. It feels incredibly unintrusive and its crowning achievement is how little you think about how it was made.

More Reading
Meet the brave New Zealander on the new season of Alone Australia 'You’ve got to be willing to eat what's available…You're not necessarily going to get a nice T-bone steak.'
Review: Adolescence is the best show you’ll watch this year How do we really know what’s going on in our children’s lives – and how do we protect them?

It feels like the least constructed show in reality TV which, of course, means it’s almost certainly the most constructed. Terrace House’s blank style is incredibly seductive. It’s easy at first to buy into the idea that it’s actually just showing us the truth. The verisimilitude is incredible. But it’s a lie. It’s not that there are seams – Terrace House is as finely machined a product as I have seen on TV – it’s that this level of real must come from an equal level of false, which can feel like a betrayal.

But it isn’t. A reality TV show convincing you of its reality is not a con. It’s a show doing its job. The craft of Terrace House’s verisimilitude is as impressive as its emotional content. Reality TV is as made up as anything else on our screens, so we should only hope that it all be as well made as Terrace House.

You can watch Terrace House: Tokyo 2019-2020 (and many previous seasons of Terrace House) on Netflix right now.

Keep going!
It should be a show about building houses, not destroying relationships – so why is The Block so sad?
It should be a show about building houses, not destroying relationships – so why is The Block so sad?

Pop CultureSeptember 9, 2019

Building houses, breaking people: The cruelty of The Block NZ

Guest writer
It should be a show about building houses, not destroying relationships – so why is The Block so sad?
It should be a show about building houses, not destroying relationships – so why is The Block so sad?

As The Block NZ fizzles to an end, psychologist Dougal Sutherland argues that the show now seems designed to destroy relationships, rather than build houses.

Over the past few months we’ve watched four couples designing, planning, painting, papering (sometimes poorly), plastering, and dressing the rooms of converted firehouses to auction them off to the highest bidder. But below the surface of these renovation efforts we’ve also witnessed four couples losing sight of their values and acting out classic psychology in-group vs out-group warring, as well as the subtle psychological manipulation of the individuals involved. We’ve seen cracks appearing – and not just in the plastering. Welcome to The Block NZ.

The show started off with the eager teams trying to do the best they could to design and build their spaces in accord with their own unique vision. But over time, and under relentless pressure, they became increasingly distracted from that vision. Lisa and Ribz’s focus appeared to shift to making alliances with their “friends” and keeping out their “enemies”. The Wellington millennials seemed to be focused on winning and stopping the Blue team, despite the millennials themselves having won the most room reveals.

Sophie and Mikaere spent increasing amounts of time second-guessing their fellow competitors. Of the four teams, the Boys from Te Kuiti stuck most closely to their underlying values of concern for others and treating all fairly, but even this began to look shaky.

How did it all go so wrong? Are these people really like this? I doubt it.

The Block NZ could be seen as a social experiment about what happens to people when they’re put under intense pressure. Some will argue that they knew what they were signing up for. But did they? Should the competitors have been able to predict their reactions to this pressure-cooker of stress? Take any eight ordinary New Zealanders and subject them to extreme sleep deprivation, isolation from their family and friends, the incentive of a big win at the expense of their competitors, and the glory of the media spotlight – would any of us behave any differently?

Dinner Wars! Totally necessary for this television show.

The Block NZ this year was the equivalent of asking new parents to showcase their first year of parenting on national TV. Sounds fine in theory but as all new parents will know, it would be a whole different thing in practice. And just as there are some things said between new parents at 3am that should never be repeated in public, so too are there things said between couples renovating a house under extraordinary circumstances that should never be repeated, let alone broadcast on TV.

What responsibility do the producers of the show have to ensure the wellbeing of their contestants, all of whom are new to media and the public eye? How much support do the contestants get in dealing with this pressure? What are the health and safety obligations of the producers? Perhaps even more importantly, what subtle manipulations are occurring that stoke the fires of discontent? The judges’ comments, while undoubtedly technically accurate, lacked compassion and seemed better aimed at fellow professionals than the rank amateurs of The Block. The ability to disqualify other teams or take money away from another couple may be useful in pitting one group against another, but how are they consistent with the actual aim of designing and renovating the best apartment?

A tip for the producers of future seasons of The Block: bring couples together prior to the show, help them to clarify and understand their personal values, and then support them to stick to these values under pressure. Develop a Block culture where teams can reward and recognise others for great work and inject some compassion and caring for those who are lucky enough to be selected for the show. Doing this might help ensure that even those contestants who don’t build the best house still retain their dignity.

Dougal Sutherland is a clinical psychologist at Victoria University of Wellington

Pop Culture