Academic literature on the topic 'The article 35 of the Business Merger and Acquisition Act'

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Journal articles on the topic "The article 35 of the Business Merger and Acquisition Act"

1

Mehta, Dhawal, and Sunil Samanta. "Mergers and Acquisitions: Nature and Significance." Vikalpa: The Journal for Decision Makers 22, no. 4 (1997): 31–38. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0256090919970404.

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The significance of mergers and acqmsltions is undergoing change since liberalization in India. The MRTP Act and FERA have been amended paving way for large business groups and foreign companies to resort to the merger and acquisition route for growth. Further, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Substantial Acquisition of Shares and Takeovers) Regulations, 1997, have been notified. Exit policy would be a step further towards the logical conclusion of liberalization process. All these are likely to change the approach for corporate growth in India. In this article, Dhawal Mehta and Sunil Samanta explain the types of mergers and acquisitions and classify specific cases of mergers and acquisitions. They further suggest areas for future research.
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2

Sukirman, Sukirman. "IMPLEMENTASI PP NO. 27 TAHUN 1998 TENTANG PENGGABUNGAN PELEBURAN DAN PENGAMBILALIHAN PERSEROAN TERBATAS DENGAN BERLAKUNYA UU NO. 40 TAHUN 2007." Jurnal Dinamika Hukum 10, no. 1 (2010). http://dx.doi.org/10.20884/1.jdh.2010.10.1.140.

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Incorporated Company is one of the most preferred form of the Company by Entrepreneur and holds an important role in mobilizing the National Economic Development. To develop incorporated company to become a healthy business, can be reach by the expansion that can be done through Merger, Consolidation and Acquisition. From those three forms, takeovers is considered more practical and profitable for the company to develop their business, because there are no company that merged or disbanded. In the implementation, the enactment of Law Number 40 Year 2007 concerning Incorporated Company are not followed by the promulgation of Regulation of the implementation of the Act. This causes the interested parties still refer to the former regulations. The problems that arise is how the implementation of Government Regulation No.27 year 1998 about Merger, Consolidation, and Acquisition of Limited Liability Company with the enactment of Law No.40 Year 2007. Based on the analysis, it known that the enactment of Law No.40 Year 2007 concerning Incorporated Company, Government Regulation No.27 Year 1998 concerning Merger, consolidation, and Acquisition still in force. In addition, Merger, consolidation, and acquisition is still based on Government Regulation No.27 Year 1998 and Article 134 of Company Law.Keywords: Merger, Consolidation, and Acquisition.
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3

Apple, Jacki. "Some Speculation on the Future of the Body and Soul." M/C Journal 2, no. 9 (2000). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.1821.

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It's the beginning of 2000 and the 21st century is all mapped out. Since we've just had that time at the end of a decade (not to mention the end of the century, as well as the Christian calendar "millennium"), when all the pundits came out to review where we had been and forecast where we are going, we should have expected a profundity of future-casting. But neither the familiar prognostications of the coming apocalypse spewing forth from the Religious Right, nor the usual statistical projections made by "experts" on such things as population growth, world politics, economic cycles, new products and shifting job markets, etc. will provide any help in reading the map we have already drawn up, or translating the directional signs. The future is now. It occupies the same domain as the past. Both are inhabitants of the present moment. History, memory, desire, imagination, the creative instinct, and the impetus to act, unfold and are realised as the future becomes the present. We cannot help but tinker with the universe. The future is what we make it and there are an infinite number of possible timelines. Or maybe not. It's the beginning of 2000 and the 21st century is all mapped out. The Human Genome Project1 is about to decode our physiology. We are preparing for the next evolution of the species. The battle between the cyberneticists and the geneticists for a new and improved version of homo sapiens version 3.0 has just begun. The question of where it will lead is open-ended. Will the insatiable quest for self-improvement lead to enlightenment -- a world with less suffering, hunger, disease, violence, and greed? Or, will we be the makers of our own extinction, and end up as a version of Star Trek's Borg -- the ultimate consumers, assimilating automatons devouring everything they encounter, and utterly devoid of the qualities that make us human? As an example of a hypothetical biological and social future the Borg are an interesting model -- a synthesis of a utopian socialist dream and the capitalist imperative of acquisition in the information age. As organic/cybernetic humanoid machines with one unified mind, equal and undifferentiated, untroubled by ego or id, individual ambitions, desires or passions, loneliness, alienation, or imagination they are the ultimate homogeneous collective. At the same time they are both the perfect corporate entity -- masters of the merger, the hostile takeover ("resistance is futile"), and a mindless population programmed to consume and continually upgrade each and every new technology and product. But the Borg don't invent; they only appropriate. Postmodern androids to the core! And we are presently very busy making new discoveries, creating and inventing, and transforming theories into things which tell us not only what is possible, but probable. One of the determining factors in the course of our future is whether or not our belief in technology over other values turns us into the puppets instead of the puppeteers, slaves to masters of our own invention -- be it HAL, Dr. Frankenstein's monster, or the Terminator. Let us consider some possible future scenarios, based not on fiction, but on what already exists, or is about to do so. Facts No one now disputes that the transformation of stem cells into new body parts, cloning technology, genetic engineering, nanotechnology, and microchip replacements not only could, but will dramatically change medicine and extend life in the coming century. In strictly medical terms, the implementation of all these technologies will bring about extraordinary relief of both the physical and psychological pain and suffering caused by debilitating, disabling, or disfiguring disease or injuries, not to mention the lives saved, and the genetic diseases prevented. Current research has found that not only stem cells taken from human embryos or fetuses could be directed to grow replacements for ailing hearts, livers or other organs, but that some stem cells taken from adult tissue could be converted into other types of cells -- brain cells becoming blood cells, or bone marrow becoming liver. The application of this technology is dazzling -- transformative biology, and it is just over the horizon2. Recently, scientists announced the creation of the first artificial cornea made from human cells. It could help restore the sight of those with certain kinds of eye damage. At the same time cybernetics is playing an equally important part. In development is a mini-computer that essentially takes over damaged visual functions and projects them onto a screen. One model expected to be ready for market within three years is a version of Geordie's visor in Star Trek: Next Generation. Another is a microchip that is inserted behind the eye3. In his newest book Fuzzy Future: From Society and Science to Heaven in a Chip, University of Southern California electrical engineering professor Bart Kosco, author of Fuzzy Thinking (1993), projects his theories onto everything from smart machines, the politics of genomes (who owns you, your genetic material, that is) and the environment (who owns the sea, or for that matter the air) to the problem of human mortality. Kosco foresees the day when we may be able to download our brains onto a microchip, thus achieving digital immortality via a gradual (fuzzy) transformation in which the brain's "meat" is replaced piece by piece with nanochips that work ever faster, better, and more creatively than old-fashioned neurons and synapses. The use of microchips to repair or replace damaged cells or portions of the brain is one thing, but as a means to greatly increase mental capacity, and gain everlasting life by "leaving your gray matter pickled in a jar" in favour of a computer in your skull is another. Would you still be you? While researchers have currently found new molecules in the brain that play a role in creating memories and learning, it does not ensure wisdom in how we put our knowledge to work. That great benefits await us, in the prevention and treatment of disease and the disintegration due to aging, is not in dispute. Nor is the enhanced capacity of a healthier society in body and mind. What constitutes the latter is. We are still left with ethical questions about the uses of technology, and spiritual and philosophical questions about what it means to be human. What are the political and social ramifications of biotechnology? British television playwright Dennis Potter's last work Cold Lazarus represents the ethical dilemmas of a future world capable of robbing a man's soul against his will. Scientists, whose funding is controlled by one or another governing media megalomaniac, seek to experience the 20th century through the genuine memories of the late Daniel Feeld, whose frozen head they have obtained. Their biochemical experiments are no less despicable than the CEO who wants to broadcast Feeld's "consciousness" worldwide twenty-four hours a day. Political opposition exists only in the form of a clandestine "terrorist" organization known as R.O.N. (Reality Or Nothing). If we were to base our forecasts on the patterns of history, just such a techno-fascist corporate future awaits us. If we are to judge by the dominant values of the present, the economic priorities of the marketplace will overpower the dissenting voices, placing not only the natural environment at risk, but our social environment as well. What will such a society do about the underclasses when smart machines have taken over their work, and they haven't the means to buy our goods, only consume precious resources; that is, when they are no longer "necessary" to the economic system. Will they be technologically phased out or upgraded? Fast Forward Let's not jump too far ahead. Maybe just to 2050. You can grow your own body part replacements, not just internal organs, but muscle, nerve tissue, skin. You can rejuvenate. Living to 120 or longer will not be unusual. The manufacture of body parts will be a big biotech business. Invest now! But will this technology be available to anyone and everyone, or only those who can afford it? Will we have parts kept in cold storage ready and waiting? Organs grown from extractions of our own foetal tissue perhaps. If it is a right not a privilege, how will our society deal with the problems of overpopulation? Will only those over a certain age -- say 80 -- who are viewed as "contributing" or "productive" members of society be eligible for new organs? Or will your lifestyle and health habits be a factor? No new livers for recalcitrant unreformed alcoholics? Will there be a ranking system of qualifications? Who will decide what they will be? Never mind arms and drugs. Consider this black market in the making! Subterranean high-tech operating rooms, organ factories, contraband stem cells, DNA, "smart" nanochips. Fast Forward And what about those microchips for brain functions? Not just for disease but for self-improvement. You might be able to improve your personality the way you can have a face-lift or breast implants. Then again, microchips could replace both pharmacology and psychotherapy in the treatment of mental disease, or merely antisocial or criminally aberrant behaviour, a new form of rehabilitation. As for sheer brain power, there would be no end to your capacity to absorb information, memorize and catalogue it, or to calculate stock market transactions. And just think of the lawsuits bound to jam up the courts, should someone have the misfortune to get a faulty chip, or even one that doesn't live up to expectations. Advertising is bound to promise you the answer to your dreams. The insertion of these parts by choice is one thing, but suppose it is forced on you by a government or a corporation. Or even by a parent while you are too young to fight back, the ones who want their offspring to be a math genius, Olympic athlete, or musical prodigy. Then again, genetic engineering may take care of some of that. Babies to order. By the end of this century you might not even have to have one the old messy way. Or you might not even be allowed to. Your genetically selected child might be grown in a computer-controlled organic womb. No more unwanted pregnancies. No more crack babies, or Downs Syndrome, or spina bifida4. We've been messing around for quite some time with a lot of things we don't know or haven't considered the consequences of in terms of the long term ecological balance of life and all its interdependent systems: cross-species genetic implants in plants and animals; plants altered to kill insects that are food for another creature on the food chain. And so on up the ladder: tomatoes that only look like tomatoes, but aren't really tomatoes any more. A perfect example of surface over substance. While we are so sure of our technological mastery, the actual "apocalypse" may well be of our own making when the forces of nature wreak havoc and pay us back for our abuses and arrogance. Or perhaps it will be nature's way of resetting the balance of things by greatly reducing the human population. Or it just might turn out this way. The newly evolved, genetically and cybernetically enhanced humanoids 3.0 survive and adapt (to 3.5), while the great mass of old humans become an endangered species like the Siberian tiger. Present Tense If you think this is all just science fiction, consider this. Already a number of young men in Silicon Valley or at M.I.T. walk around all day every day with one eye and ear always focused on the little headset computer screen that keeps them perpetually "on-line", plugged in. Do they look a little like the Borg? Well yes. Or, think about this. About a year ago a bill came up in the California state legislature proposing that a microchip be inserted in all newborn infants, like the ones you can put in your dog so you can track her if she gets lost or stolen. Same principle with babies. The bill was defeated. But very soon we will all be locatable, "on-line". No chance of disappearing in the 21st century when the wilderness is about to become another "theme" park, and when, at this very moment, you can be traced every time you use a plastic card or make a phone call. What a scary thought for dissidents, revolutionaries, battered women, or anyone who just wants to "get away from it all". In the 21st century, Huxley's "savages" would have as hard a time surviving or avoiding capture as a wolf in Arizona. How will our civil rights, our human rights be affected at the present rate of invasion into our privacy. Is your body your own? And what about your mind? What exactly will the "right to your life" mean? Will "smart" machines have that right? How will we define a sentient being? And so here we are. The 21st century is all mapped out. Maps can be misread. Maps can be wrong. The place that has been charted can be changed. By a force of nature, or an act of will. Or better still, by an act of conscience or consciousness, for it is an energy force with transformative powers. We could become better in our hearts and souls. We could use our knowledge with grace. Now go out and draw a new map(s). Happy New Century! Footnotes Huge advances in genomics, the science of deciphering the basic genetic pattern of life, were made in 1999, including the complete gene sequence for three microbes, a third of the base pairs in human DNA, along with one complete chromosome, number 22, and a rough draft of the entire human genome is expected by March 2000. For more about the Human Genome Project check out the following Website: http://www.ornl.gov/hgmis/ and all its links. Also http://www.turbulence.org/ for Bionet :: Recombinant by Eugene Thacker, an artist's "attempt to assemble a body of discourse surrounding contemporary molecular genetics and biotechnology at the end of the millenium". Science journal editor Floyd E. Bloom optimistically predicts that "although much remains to be done to convert today's results into tomorrow's treatments and tools, the likelihood of success seems high". Researchers in this field are: May Griffith, Research Scientist, University of Ottowa Eye Institute, Professor, Cellular and Molecular Medicine, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario Gislin Dagnelie, Researcher, Lions Vision Research and Rehabilitation Center, Wilmer Eye Institute, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland Dr. Thomas Friberg, Professor, Ophthalmology, Chairman, Department of Ophthalmology, Director of Retina and Vitreous Service, The Eye and Ear Institute of Pittsburgh, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Dr. Terry Ernest, Professor, Chairman, Ophthalmology and Visual Science, University of Chicago Medical Center, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois A congenital cleft of the vertebral column with hernial protrusion of the meninges (membranes that envelop the brain and spinal cord). Citation reference for this article MLA style: Jacki Apple. "Some Speculation on the Future of the Body and Soul." M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2.9 (2000). [your date of access] <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/0001/body.php>. Chicago style: Jacki Apple, "Some Speculation on the Future of the Body and Soul," M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2, no. 9 (2000), <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/0001/body.php> ([your date of access]). APA style: Jacki Apple. (2000) Some speculation on the future of the body and soul. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2(9). <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/0001/body.php> ([your date of access]).
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4

Pugsley, Peter. "At Home in Singaporean Sitcoms." M/C Journal 10, no. 4 (2007). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.2695.

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 The use of the family home as a setting for television sitcoms (situation comedies) has long been recognised for its ability to provide audiences with an identifiable site of ontological security (much discussed by Giddens, Scannell, Saunders and others). From the beginnings of American sitcoms with such programs as Leave it to Beaver, and through the trail of The Brady Bunch, The Cosby Show, Roseanne, The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, and on to Home Improvement, That 70s Show and How I Met Your Mother, the US has led the way with screenwriters and producers capitalising on the value of using the suburban family dwelling as a fixed setting. The most obvious advantage is the use of an easily constructed and inexpensive set, most often on a TV studio soundstage requiring only a few rooms (living room, kitchen and bedroom are usually enough to set the scene), and a studio audience. In Singapore, sitcoms have had similar successes; portraying the lives of ‘ordinary people’ in their home settings. Some programs have achieved phenomenal success, including an unprecedented ten year run for Phua Chu Kang Pte Ltd from 1996-2007, closely followed by Under One Roof (1994-2000 and an encore season in 2002), and Living with Lydia (2001-2005). This article furthers Blunt and Dowling’s exploration of the “critical geography” of home, by providing a focused analysis of home-based sitcoms in the nation-state of Singapore. The use of the home tells us a lot. Roseanne’s cluttered family home represents a lived reality for working-class families throughout the Western world. In Friends, the seemingly wealthy ‘young’ people live in a fashionable apartment building, while Seinfeld’s apartment block is much less salubrious, indicating (in line with the character) the struggle of the humble comedian. Each of these examples tells us something about not just the characters, but quite often about class, race, and contemporary societies. In the Singaporean programs, the home in Under One Roof (hereafter UOR) represents the major form of housing in Singapore, and the program as a whole demonstrates the workability of Singaporean multiculturalism in a large apartment block. Phua Chu Kang Pte Ltd (PCK) demonstrates the entrepreneurial abilities of even under-educated Singaporeans, with its lead character, a building contractor, living in a large freestanding dwelling – generally reserved for the well-heeled of Singaporean society. And in Living with Lydia (LWL) (a program which demonstrates Singapore’s capacity for global integration), Hong Kong émigré Lydia is forced to share a house (less ostentatious than PCK’s) with the family of the hapless Billy B. Ong. There is perhaps no more telling cultural event than the sitcom. In the 1970s, The Brady Bunch told us more about American values and habits than any number of news reports or cop shows. A nation’s identity is uncovered; it bares its soul to us through the daily tribulations of its TV households. In Singapore, home-based sitcoms have been one of the major success stories in local television production with each of these three programs collecting multiple prizes at the region-wide Asian Television Awards. These sitcoms have been able to reflect the ideals and values of the Singaporean nation to audiences both at ‘home’ and abroad. This article explores the worlds of UOR, PCK, and LWL, and the ways in which each of the fictional homes represents key features of the multi-ethnic, multi-cultural Singapore. Through ownership and regulation, Singaporean TV programs operate as a firm link between the state and its citizens. These sitcoms follow regular patterns where the ‘man of the house’ is more buffoon than breadwinner – in a country defined by its neo-Confucian morality, sitcoms allow a temporary subversion of patriarchal structures. In this article I argue that the central theme in Singaporean sitcoms is that while home is a personal space, it is also a valuable site for national identities to be played out. These identities are visible in the physical indicators of the exterior and interior living spaces, and the social indicators representing a benign patriarchy and a dominant English language. Structure One of the key features of sitcoms is the structure: cold open – titles – establishing shot – opening scene. Generally the cold opening (aka “the teaser”) takes place inside the home to quickly (re)establish audience familiarity with the location and the characters. The title sequence then features, in the case of LWL and PCK, the characters outside the house (in LWL this is in cartoon format), and in UOR (see Figure 1) it is the communal space of the barbeque area fronting the multi-story HDB (Housing Development Board) apartment blocks. Figure 1: Under One Roof The establishing shot at the end of each title sequence, and when returning from ad breaks, is an external view of the characters’ respective dwellings. In Seinfeld this establishing shot is the New York apartment block, in Roseanne it is the suburban house, and the Singaporean sitcoms follow the same format (see Figure 2). Figure 2: Phua Chu Kang External Visions of the Home This emphasis on exterior buildings reminds the viewer that Singaporean housing is, in many ways, unique. As a city-state (and a young one at that) its spatial constraints are particularly limiting: there simply isn’t room for suburban housing on quarter acre blocks. It rapidly transformed from an “empty rock” to a scattered Malay settlement of bay and riverside kampongs (villages) recognisable by its stilt houses. Then in the shadow of colonialism and the rise of modernity, the kampongs were replaced in many cases by European-inspired terrace houses. Finally, in the post-colonial era high-rise housing began to swell through the territory, creating what came to be known as the “HDB new town”, with some 90% of the population now said to reside in HDB units, and many others living in private high-rises (Chang 102, 104). Exterior shots used in UOR (see Figure 3) consistently emphasise the distinctive HDB blocks. As with the kampong housing, high-rise apartments continue notions of communal living in that “Living below, above and side by side other people requires tolerance of neighbours and a respect towards the environment of the housing estate for the good of all” (104). The provision of readily accessible public housing was part of the “covenant between the newly enfranchised electorate and the elected government” (Chua 47). Figure 3: Establishing shot from UOR In UOR, we see the constant interruption of the lives of the Tan family by their multi-ethnic neighbours. This occurs to such an extent as to be a part of the normal daily flow of life in Singaporean society. Chang argues that despite the normally interventionist activities of the state, it is the “self-enforcing norms” of behaviour that have worked in maintaining a “peaceable society in high-rise housing” (104). This communitarian attitude even extends to the large gated residence of PCK, home to an almost endless stream of relatives and friends. The gate itself seems to perform no restrictive function. But such a “peaceable society” can also be said to be a result of state planning which extends to the “racial majoritarianism” imposed on HDB units in the form of quotas determining “the actual number of households of each of the three major races [Chinese, Malay and Indian] … to be accommodated in a block of flats” (Chua 55). Issues of race are important in Singapore where “the inscription of media imagery bears the cultural discourse and materiality of the social milieu” (Wong 120) perhaps nowhere more graphically illustrated than in the segregation of TV channels along linguistic / cultural lines. These 3 programs all featured on MediaCorp TV’s predominantly English-language Channel 5 and are, in the words of Roland Barthes, “anchored” by dint of their use of English. Home Will Eat Itself The consumption of home-based sitcoms by audiences in their own living-rooms creates a somewhat self-parodying environment. As John Ellis once noted, it is difficult to escape from the notion that “TV is a profoundly domestic phenomenon” (113) in that it constantly attempts to “include the audiences own conception of themselves into the texture of its programmes” (115). In each of the three Singaporean programs living-rooms are designed to seat characters in front of a centrally located TV set – at most all the audience sees is the back of the TV, and generally only when the TV is incorporated into a storyline, as in the case of PCK in Figure 4 (note the TV set in the foreground). Figure 4: PCK Even in this episode of PCK when the lead characters stumble across a pornographic video starring one of the other lead characters, the viewer only hears the program. Perhaps the most realistic (and acerbic) view of how TV reorganises our lives – both spatially in the physical layout of our homes, and temporally in the way we construct our viewing habits (eating dinner or doing the housework while watching the screen) – is the British “black comedy”, The Royle Family. David Morley (443) notes that “TV and other media have adapted themselves to the circumstances of domestic consumption while the domestic arena itself has been simultaneously redefined to accommodate their requirements”. Morley refers to The Royle Family’s narrative that rests on the idea that “for many people, family life and watching TV have become indistinguishable to the extent that, in this fictional household, it is almost entirely conducted from the sitting positions of the viewers clustered around the set” (436). While TV is a central fixture in most sitcoms, its use is mostly as a peripheral thematic device with characters having their viewing interrupted by the arrival of another character, or by a major (within the realms of the plot) event. There is little to suggest that “television schedules have instigated a significant restructuring of family routines” as shown in Livingstone’s audience-based study of UK viewers (104). In the world of the sitcom, the temporalities of characters’ lives do not need to accurately reflect that of “real life” – or if they do, things quickly descend to the bleakness exemplified by the sedentary Royles. As Scannell notes, “broadcast output, like daily life, is largely uneventful, and both are punctuated (predictably and unpredictably) by eventful occasions” (4). To show sitcom characters in this static, passive environment would be anathema to the “real” viewer, who would quickly lose interest. This is not to suggest that sitcoms are totally benign though as with all genres they are “the outcome of social practices, received procedures that become objectified in the narratives of television, then modified in the interpretive act of viewing” (Taylor 14). In other words, they feature a contextualisation that is readily identifiable to members of an established society. However, within episodes themselves, it as though time stands still – character development is almost non-existent, or extremely slow at best and we see each episode has “flattened past and future into an eternal present in which parents love and respect one another, and their children forever” (Taylor 16). It takes some six seasons before the character of PCK becomes a father, although in previous seasons he acts as a mentor to his nephew, Aloysius. Contained in each episode, in true sitcom style, are particular “narrative lines” in which “one-liners and little comic situations [are] strung on a minimal plot line” containing a minor problem “the solution to which will take 22 minutes and pull us gently through the sequence of events toward a conclusion” (Budd et al. 111). It is important to note that the sitcom genre does not work in every culture, as each locale renders the sitcom with “different cultural meanings” (Nielsen 95). Writing of the failure of the Danish series Three Whores and a Pickpocket (with a premise like that, how could it fail?), Nielsen (112) attributes its failure to the mixing of “kitchen sink realism” with “moments of absurdity” and “psychological drama with expressionistic camera work”, moving it well beyond the strict mode of address required by the genre. In Australia, soap operas Home and Away and Neighbours have been infinitely more popular than our attempts at sitcoms – which had a brief heyday in the 1980s with Hey Dad..!, Kingswood Country and Mother and Son – although Kath and Kim (not studio-based) could almost be counted. Lichter et al. (11) state that “television entertainment can be ‘political’ even when it does not deal with the stuff of daily headlines or partisan controversy. Its latent politics lie in the unavoidable portrayal of individuals, groups, and institutions as a backdrop to any story that occupies the foreground”. They state that US television of the 1960s was dominated by the “idiot sitcom” and that “To appreciate these comedies you had to believe that social conventions were so ironclad they could not tolerate variations. The scripts assumed that any minute violation of social conventions would lead to a crisis that could be played for comic results” (15). Series like Happy Days “harked back to earlier days when problems were trivial and personal, isolated from the concerns of a larger world” (17). By the late 1980s, Roseanne and Married…With Children had “spawned an antifamily-sitcom format that used sarcasm, cynicism, and real life problems to create a type of in-your-face comedy heretofore unseen on prime time” (20). This is markedly different from the type of values presented in Singaporean sitcoms – where filial piety and an unrelenting faith in the family unit is sacrosanct. In this way, Singaporean sitcoms mirror the ideals of earlier US sitcoms which idealise the “egalitarian family in which parental wisdom lies in appeals to reason and fairness rather than demands for obedience” (Lichter et al. 406). Dahlgren notes that we are the products of “an ongoing process of the shaping and reshaping of identity, in response to the pluralised sets of social forces, cultural currents and personal contexts encountered by individuals” where we end up with “composite identities” (318). Such composite identities make the presentation (or re-presentation) of race problematic for producers of mainstream television. Wong argues that “Within the context of PAP hegemony, media presentation of racial differences are manufactured by invoking and resorting to traditional values, customs and practices serving as symbols and content” (118). All of this is bound within a classificatory system in which each citizen’s identity card is inscribed as Chinese, Malay, Indian or Other (often referred to as CMIO), and a broader social discourse in which “the Chinese are linked to familial values of filial piety and the practice of extended family, the Malays to Islam and rural agricultural activities, and the Indians to the caste system” (Wong 118). However, these sitcoms avoid directly addressing the issue of race, preferring to accentuate cultural differences instead. In UOR the tables are turned when a none-too-subtle dig at the crude nature of mainland Chinese (with gags about the state of public toilets), is soon turned into a more reverential view of Chinese culture and business acumen. Internal Visions of the Home This reverence for Chinese culture is also enacted visually. The loungeroom settings of these three sitcoms all provide examples of the fashioning of the nation through a “ubiquitous semi-visibility” (Noble 59). Not only are the central characters in each of these sitcoms constructed as ethnically Chinese, but the furnishings provide a visible nod to Chinese design in the lacquered screens, chairs and settees of LWL (see Figure 5.1), in the highly visible pair of black inlaid mother-of-pearl wall hangings of UOR (see Figure 5.2) and in the Chinese statuettes and wall-hangings found in the PCK home. Each of these items appears in the central view of the shows most used setting, the lounge/family room. There is often symmetry involved as well; the balanced pearl hangings of UOR are mirrored in a set of silk prints in LWL and the pair of ceramic Chinese lions in PCK. Figure 5.1: LWL Figure 5.2: UOR Thus, all three sitcoms feature design elements that reflect visible links to Chinese culture and sentiments, firmly locating the sitcoms “in Asia”, and providing a sense of the nation. The sets form an important role in constructing a realist environment, one in which “identification with realist narration involves a temporary merger of at least some of the viewer’s identity with the position offered by the text” (Budd et al. 110). These constant silent reminders of the Chinese-based hegemon – the cultural “majoritarianism” – anchors the sitcoms to a determined concept of the nation-state, and reinforces the “imaginative geographies of home” (Blunt and Dowling 247). The Foolish “Father” Figure in a Patriarchal Society But notions of a dominant Chinese culture are dealt with in a variety of ways in these sitcoms – not the least in a playful attitude toward patriarchal figures. In UOR, the Tan family “patriarch” is played by Moses Lim, in PCK, Gurmit Singh plays Phua and in LWL Samuel Chong plays Billy B. Ong (or, as Lydia mistakenly refers to him Billy Bong). Erica Sharrer makes the claim that class is a factor in presenting the father figure as buffoon, and that US sitcoms feature working class families in which “the father is made to look inept, silly, or incompetent have become more frequent” partly in response to changing societal structures where “women are shouldering increasing amounts of financial responsibility in the home” (27). Certainly in the three series looked at here, PCK (the tradesman) is presented as the most derided character in his role as head of the household. Moses Lim’s avuncular Tan Ah Teck is presented mostly as lovably foolish, even when reciting his long-winded moral tales at the conclusion of each episode, and Billy B. Ong, as a middle-class businessman, is presented more as a victim of circumstance than as a fool. Sharrer ponders whether “sharing the burden of bread-winning may be associated with fathers perceiving they are losing advantages to which they were traditionally entitled” (35). But is this really a case of males losing the upper hand? Hanke argues that men are commonly portrayed as the target of humour in sitcoms, but only when they “are represented as absurdly incongruous” to the point that “this discursive strategy recuperates patriarchal notions” (90). The other side of the coin is that while the “dominant discursive code of patriarchy might be undone” (but isn’t), “the sitcom’s strategy for containing women as ‘wives’ and ‘mothers’ is always contradictory and open to alternative readings” (Hanke 77). In Singapore’s case though, we often return to images of the women in the kitchen, folding the washing or agonising over the work/family dilemma, part of what Blunt and Dowling refer to as the “reproduction of patriarchal and heterosexist relations” often found in representations of “the ideal’ suburban home” (29). Eradicating Singlish One final aspect of these sitcoms is the use of language. PM Lee Hsien Loong once said that he had no interest in “micromanaging” the lives of Singaporeans (2004). Yet his two predecessors (PM Goh and PM Lee Senior) both reflected desires to do so by openly criticising the influence of Phua Chu Kang’s liberal use of colloquial phrases and phrasing. While the use of Singlish (or Singapore Colloquial English / SCE) in these sitcoms is partly a reflection of everyday life in Singapore, by taking steps to eradicate it through the Speak Good English movement, the government offers an intrusion into the private home-space of Singaporeans (Ho 17). Authorities fear that increased use of Singlish will damage the nation’s ability to communicate on a global basis, withdrawing to a locally circumscribed “pidgin English” (Rubdy 345). Indeed, the use of Singlish in UOR is deliberately underplayed in order to capitalise on overseas sales of the show (which aired, for example, on Australia’s SBS television) (Srilal). While many others have debated the Singlish issue, my concern is with its use in the home environment as representative of Singaporean lifestyles. As novelist Hwee Hwee Tan (2000) notes: Singlish is crude precisely because it’s rooted in Singapore’s unglamorous past. This is a nation built from the sweat of uncultured immigrants who arrived 100 years ago to bust their asses in the boisterous port. Our language grew out of the hardships of these ancestors. Singlish thus offers users the opportunity to “show solidarity, comradeship and intimacy (despite differences in background)” and against the state’s determined efforts to adopt the language of its colonizer (Ho 19-20). For this reason, PCK’s use of Singlish iterates a “common man” theme in much the same way as Paul Hogan’s “Ocker” image of previous decades was seen as a unifying feature of mainstream Australian values. That the fictional PCK character was eventually “forced” to take “English” lessons (a storyline rapidly written into the program after the direct criticisms from the various Prime Ministers), is a sign that the state has other ideas about the development of Singaporean society, and what is broadcast en masse into Singaporean homes. Conclusion So what do these home-based sitcoms tell us about Singaporean nationalism? Firstly, within the realms of a multiethnic society, mainstream representations reflect the hegemony present in the social and economic structures of Singapore. Chinese culture is dominant (albeit in an English-speaking environment) and Indian, Malay and Other cultures are secondary. Secondly, the home is a place of ontological security, and partial adornment with cultural ornaments signifying Chinese culture are ever-present as a reminder of the Asianness of the sitcom home, ostensibly reflecting the everyday home of the audience. The concept of home extends beyond the plywood-prop walls of the soundstage though. As Noble points out, “homes articulate domestic spaces to national experience” (54) through the banal nationalism exhibited in “the furniture of everyday life” (55). In a Singaporean context, Velayutham (extending the work of Morley) explores the comforting notion of Singapore as “home” to its citizens and concludes that the “experience of home and belonging amongst Singaporeans is largely framed in the materiality and social modernity of everyday life” (4). Through the use of sitcoms, the state is complicit in creating and recreating the family home as a site for national identities, adhering to dominant modes of culture and language. References Blunt, Alison, and Robyn Dowling. Home. London: Routledge, 2006. Budd, Mike, Steve Craig, and Clay Steinman. Consuming Environments: Television and Commercial Culture. New Jersey: Rutgers UP, 1999. Chang, Sishir. “A High-Rise Vernacular in Singapore’s Housing Development Board Housing.” Berkeley Planning Journal 14 (2000): 97-116. Chua, Beng Huat. “Public Housing Residents as Clients of the State.” Housing Studies 15.1 (2000). Dahlgren, Peter. “Media, Citizenship and Civic Culture”. Mass Media and Society. 3rd ed. Eds. James Curran and Michael Gurevitch. London: Arnold, 2000. 310-328. Ellis, John. Visible Fictions: Cinema, Television, Video. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1982. Hanke, Robert. “The ‘Mock-Macho’ Situation Comedy: Hegemonic Masculinity and its Reiteration.” Western Journal of Communication 62.1 (1998). Ho, Debbie G.E. “‘I’m Not West. I’m Not East. So How Leh?’” English Today 87 22.3 (2006). Lee, Hsien Loong. “Our Future of Opportunity and Promise.” National Day Rally 2004 Speech. 29 Apr. 2007 http://www.gov.sg/nd/ND04.htm>. Lichter, S. Robert, Linda S. Lichter, and Stanley Rothman. Prime Time: How TV Portrays American Culture. Washington D.C.: Regnery Publishing, 1994. Livingstone, Sonia. Young People and New Media: Childhood and the Changing Media Environment. London: Sage, 2002 Morley, David. “What’s ‘Home’ Got to Do with It? Contradictory Dynamics in the Domestication of Technology and the Dislocation of Domesticity.” European Journal of Cultural Studies 6 (2003). Noble, Greg. “Comfortable and Relaxed: Furnishing the Home and Nation.” Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies 16.1 (2002). Rubdy, Rani. “Creative Destruction: Singapore’s Speak Good English Movement.” World Englishes 20.3 (2001). Scannell, Paddy. “For a Phenomenology of Radio and Television.” Journal of Communication 45.3 (1995). Scharrer, Erica. “From Wise to Foolish: The Portrayal of the Sitcom Father, 1950s-1990s.” Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media 45.1 (2001). Srilal, Mohan. “Quick Quick: ‘Singlish’ Is Out in Re-education Campaign.” Asia Times Online (28 Aug. 1999). Tan, Hwee Hwee. “A War of Words over ‘Singlish’: Singapore’s Government Wants Its Citizens to Speak Good English, But They Would Rather Be ‘Talking Cock’.” Time International 160.3 (29 July 2002). Taylor, Ella. “From the Nelsons to the Huxtables: Genre and Family Imagery in American Network Television.” Qualitative Sociology 12.1 (1989). Velayutham, Selvaraj. “Affect, Materiality, and the Gift of Social Life in Singapore.” SOJOURN 19.1 (2004). Wong, Kokkeong. Media and Culture in Singapore: A Theory of Controlled Commodification. New Jersey: Hampton Press, 2001. Images Under One Roof: The Special Appearances. Singapore: Television Corporation of Singapore. VCD. 2000. Living with Lydia (Season 1, Volume 1). Singapore: MediaCorp Studios, Blue Max Enterprise. VCD. 2001. Phua Chu Kang Pte Ltd (Season 5, Episode 10). Kuala Lumpur: MediaCorp Studios, Speedy Video Distributors. VCD. 2003. 
 
 
 
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Rocavert, Carla. "Aspiring to the Creative Class: Reality Television and the Role of the Mentor." M/C Journal 19, no. 2 (2016). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.1086.

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Introduction Mentors play a role in real life, just as they do in fiction. They also feature in reality television, which sits somewhere between the two. In fiction, mentors contribute to the narrative arc by providing guidance and assistance (Vogler 12) to a mentee in his or her life or professional pursuits. These exchanges are usually characterized by reciprocity, the need for mutual recognition (Gadamer 353) and involve some kind of moral question. They dramatise the possibilities of mentoring in reality, to provide us with a greater understanding of the world, and our human interaction within it. Reality television offers a different perspective. Like drama it uses the plot device of a mentor character to heighten the story arc, but instead of focusing on knowledge-based portrayals (Gadamer 112) of the mentor and mentee, the emphasis is instead on the mentee’s quest for ascension. In attempting to transcend their unknownness (Boorstin) contestants aim to penetrate an exclusive creative class (Florida). Populated by celebrity chefs, businessmen, entertainers, fashionistas, models, socialites and talent judges (to name a few), this class seemingly adds authenticity to ‘competitions’ and other formats. While the mentor’s role, on the surface, is to provide divine knowledge and facilitate the journey, a different agenda is evident in the ways carefully scripted (Booth) dialogue heightens the drama through effusive praise (New York Daily News) and “tactless” (Woodward), humiliating (Hirschorn; Winant 69; Woodward) and cruel sentiments. From a screen narrative point of view, this takes reality television as ‘storytelling’ (Aggarwal; Day; Hirschorn; “Reality Writer”; Rupel; Stradal) into very different territory. The contrived and later edited (Crouch; Papacharissi and Mendelson 367) communication between mentor and mentee not only renders the relationship disingenuous, it compounds the primary ethical concerns of associated Schadenfreude (Balasubramanian, Forstie and van den Scott 434; Cartwright), and the severe financial inequality (Andrejevic) underpinning a multi-billion dollar industry (Hamilton). As upward mobility and instability continue to be ubiquitously portrayed in 21st century reality entertainment under neoliberalism (Sender 4; Winant 67), it is with increasing frequency that we are seeing the systematic reinvention of the once significant cultural and historical role of the mentor. Mentor as Fictional Archetype and Communicator of ThemesDepictions of mentors can be found across the Western art canon. From the mythological characters of Telemachus’ Athena and Achilles’ Chiron, to King Arthur’s Merlin, Cinderella’s Fairy Godmother, Jim Hawkins’ Long John Silver, Frodo’s Gandalf, Batman’s Alfred and Marty McFly’s Doc Emmett Brown (among many more), the dramatic energy of the teacher, expert or supernatural aid (Vogler 39) has been timelessly powerful. Heroes, typically, engage with a mentor as part of their journey. Mentor types range extensively, from those who provide motivation, inspiration, training or gifts (Vogler), to those who may be dark or malevolent, or have fallen from grace (such as Michael Douglas’ Gordon Gekko in Wall Street 1987, or the ex-tribute Haymitch in The Hunger Games, 2012). A good drama usually complicates the relationship in some way, exploring initial reluctance from either party, or instances of tragedy (Vogler 11, 44) which may prevent the relationship achieving its potential. The intriguing twist of a fallen or malevolent mentor additionally invites the audience to morally analyze the ways the hero responds to what the mentor provides, and to question what our teachers or superiors tell us. In television particularly, long running series such as Mad Men have shown how a mentoring relationship can change over time, where “non-rational” characters (Buzzanell and D’Enbeau 707) do not necessarily maintain reciprocity or equality (703) but become subject to intimate, ambivalent and erotic aspects.As the mentor in fiction has deep cultural roots for audiences today, it is no wonder they are used, in a variety of archetypal capacities, in reality television. The dark Simon Cowell (of Pop Idol, American Idol, Britain’s Got Talent, America’s Got Talent and The X-Factor series) and the ‘villainous’ (Byrnes) Michelin-starred Marco Pierre White (Hell’s Kitchen, The Chopping Block, Marco Pierre White’s Kitchen Wars, MasterChef Australia, New Zealand, South Africa) provide reality writers with much needed antagonism (Rupel, Stradal). Those who have fallen from grace, or allowed their personal lives to play out in tabloid sagas such as Britney Spears (Marikar), or Caitlyn Jenner (Bissinger) provide different sources of conflict and intrigue. They are then counterbalanced with or repackaged as the good mentor. Examples of the nurturer who shows "compassion and empathy" include American Idol’s Paula Abdul (Marche), or the supportive Jennifer Hawkins in Next Top Model (Thompson). These distinctive characters help audiences to understand the ‘reality’ as a story (Crouch; Rupel; Stradal). But when we consider the great mentors of screen fiction, it becomes clear how reality television has changed the nature of story. The Karate Kid I (1984) and Good Will Hunting (1998) are two examples where mentoring is almost the exclusive focus, and where the experience of the characters differs greatly. In both films an initially reluctant mentor becomes deeply involved in the mentee’s project. They act as a special companion to the hero in the face of isolation, and, significantly, reveal a tragedy of their own, providing a nexus through which the mentee can access a deeper kind of truth. Not only are they flawed and ordinary people (they are not celebrities within the imagined worlds of the stories) who the mentee must challenge and learn to truly respect, they are “effecting and important” (Maslin) in reminding audiences of those hidden idiosyncrasies that open the barriers to friendship. Mentors in these stories, and many others, communicate themes of class, culture, talent, jealousy, love and loss which inform ideas about the ethical treatment of the ‘other’ (Gadamer). They ultimately prove pivotal to self worth, human confidence and growth. Very little of this thematic substance survives in reality television (see comparison of plots and contrasting modes of human engagement in the example of The Office and Dirty Jobs, Winant 70). Archetypally identifiable as they may be, mean judges and empathetic supermodels as characters are concerned mostly with the embodiment of perfection. They are flawless, untouchable and indeed most powerful when human welfare is at stake, and when the mentee before them faces isolation (see promise to a future ‘Rihanna’, X-Factor USA, Season 2, Episode 1 and Tyra Banks’ Next Top Model tirade at a contestant who had not lived up to her potential, West). If connecting with a mentor in fiction has long signified the importance of understanding of the past, of handing down tradition (Gadamer 354), and of our fascination with the elder, wiser other, then we can see a fundamental shift in narrative representation of mentors in reality television stories. In the past, as we have opened our hearts to such characters, as a facilitator to or companion of the hero, we have rehearsed a sacred respect for the knowledge and fulfillment mentors can provide. In reality television the ‘drama’ may evoke a fleeting rush of excitement at the hero’s success or failure, but the reality belies a pronounced distancing between mentor and mentee. The Creative Class: An Aspirational ParadigmThemes of ascension and potential fulfillment are also central to modern creativity discourse (Runco; Runco 672; United Nations). Seen as the driving force of the 21st century, creativity is now understood as much more than art, capable of bringing economic prosperity (United Nations) and social cohesion to its acme (United Nations xxiii). At the upper end of creative practice, is what Florida called “the creative class: a fast growing, highly educated, and well-paid segment of the workforce” (on whose expertise corporate profits depend), in industries ranging “from technology to entertainment, journalism to finance, high-end manufacturing to the arts” (Florida). Their common ethos is centered on individuality, diversity, and merit; eclipsing previous systems focused on ‘shopping’ and theme park consumerism and social conservatism (Eisinger). While doubts have since been raised about the size (Eisinger) and financial practices (Krätke 838) of the creative class (particularly in America), from an entertainment perspective at least, the class can be seen in full action. Extending to rich housewives, celebrity teen mothers and even eccentric duck hunters and swamp people, the creative class has caught up to the more traditional ‘star’ actor or music artist, and is increasingly marketable within world’s most sought after and expensive media spaces. Often reality celebrities make their mark for being the most outrageous, the cruelest (Peyser), or the weirdest (Gallagher; Peyser) personalities in the spotlight. Aspiring to the creative class thus, is a very public affair in television. Willing participants scamper for positions on shows, particularly those with long running, heavyweight titles such as Big Brother, The Bachelor, Survivor and the Idol series (Hill 35). The better known formats provide high visibility, with the opportunity to perform in front of millions around the globe (Frere-Jones, Day). Tapping into the deeply ingrained upward-mobility rhetoric of America, and of Western society, shows are aided in large part by 24-hour news, social media, the proliferation of celebrity gossip and the successful correlation between pop culture and an entertainment-style democratic ideal. As some have noted, dramatized reality is closely tied to the rise of individualization, and trans-national capitalism (Darling-Wolf 127). Its creative dynamism indeed delivers multi-lateral benefits: audiences believe the road to fame and fortune is always just within reach, consumerism thrives, and, politically, themes of liberty, egalitarianism and freedom ‘provide a cushioning comfort’ (Peyser; Pinter) from the domestic and international ills that would otherwise dispel such optimism. As the trials and tests within the reality genre heighten the seriousness of, and excitement about ascending toward the creative elite, show creators reproduce the same upward-mobility themed narrative across formats all over the world. The artifice is further supported by the festival-like (Grodin 46) symbology of the live audience, mass viewership and the online voting community, which in economic terms, speaks to the creative power of the material. Whether through careful manipulation of extra media space, ‘game strategy’, or other devices, those who break through are even more idolized for the achievement of metamorphosing into a creative hero. For the creative elite however, who wins ‘doesn’t matter much’. Vertical integration is the priority, where the process of making contestants famous is as lucrative as the profits they will earn thereafter; it’s a form of “one-stop shopping” as the makers of Idol put it according to Frere-Jones. Furthermore, as Florida’s measures and indicators suggested, the geographically mobile new creative class is driven by lifestyle values, recreation, participatory culture and diversity. Reality shows are the embodiment this idea of creativity, taking us beyond stale police procedural dramas (Hirschorn) and racially typecast family sitcoms, into a world of possibility. From a social equality perspective, while there has been a notable rise in gay and transgender visibility (Gamson) and stories about lower socio-economic groups – fast food workers and machinists for example – are told in a way they never were before, the extent to which shows actually unhinge traditional power structures is, as scholars have noted (Andrejevic and Colby 197; Schroeder) open to question. As boundaries are nonetheless crossed in the age of neoliberal creativity, the aspirational paradigm of joining a new elite in real life is as potent as ever. Reality Television’s Mentors: How to Understand Their ‘Role’Reality television narratives rely heavily on the juxtaposition between celebrity glamour and comfort, and financial instability. As mentees put it ‘all on the line’, storylines about personal suffering are hyped and molded for maximum emotional impact. In the best case scenarios mentors such as Caitlyn Jenner will help a trans mentee discover their true self by directing them in a celebrity-style photo shoot (see episode featuring Caitlyn and Zeam, Logo TV 2015). In more extreme cases the focus will be on an adopted contestant’s hopes that his birth mother will hear him sing (The X Factor USA, Season 2, Episode 11 Part 1), or on a postal clerk’s fear that elimination will mean she has to go back “to selling stamps” (The X Factor US - Season 2 Episode 11 Part 2). In the entrepreneurship format, as Woodward pointed out, it is not ‘help’ that mentees are given, but condescension. “I have to tell you, my friend, that this is the worst idea I’ve ever heard. You don’t have a clue about how to set up a business or market a product,” Woodward noted as the feedback given by one elite businessman on The Shark Tank (Woodward). “This is a five million dollar contract and I have to know that you can go the distance” (The X Factor US – Season 2 Episode 11, Part 1) Britney Spears warned to a thirteen-year-old contestant before accepting her as part of her team. In each instance the fictitious premise of being either an ‘enabler’ or destroyer of dreams is replayed and slightly adapted for ongoing consumer interest. This lack of shared experience and mutual recognition in reality television also highlights the overt, yet rarely analyzed focus on the wealth of mentors as contrasted with their unstable mentees. In the respective cases of The X Factor and I Am Cait, one of the wealthiest moguls in entertainment, Cowell, reportedly contracts mentors for up to $15 million per season (Nair); Jenner’s performance in I Am Cait was also set to significantly boost the Kardashian empire (reportedly already worth $300 million, Pavia). In both series, significant screen time has been dedicated to showing the mentors in luxurious beachside houses, where mentees may visit. Despite the important social messages embedded in Caitlyn’s story (which no doubt nourishes the Kardashian family’s generally more ersatz material), the question, from a moral point of view becomes: would these mentors still interact with that particular mentee without the money? Regardless, reality participants insist they are fulfilling their dreams when they appear. Despite the preplanning, possibility of distress (Australia Network News; Bleasby) and even suicide (Schuster), as well as the ferocity of opinion surrounding shows (Marche) the parade of a type of ‘road of trials’ (Vogler 189) is enough to keep a huge fan base interested, and hungry for their turn to experience the fortune of being touched by the creative elite; or in narrative terms, a supernatural aid. ConclusionThe key differences between reality television and artistic narrative portrayals of mentors can be found in the use of archetypes for narrative conflict and resolution, in the ways themes are explored and the ways dialogue is put to use, and in the focus on and visibility of material wealth (Frere-Jones; Peyser). These differences highlight the political, cultural and social implications of exchanging stories about potential fulfillment, for stories about ascension to the creative class. Rather than being based on genuine reciprocity, and understanding of human issues, reality shows create drama around the desperation to penetrate the inner sanctum of celebrity fame and fortune. In fiction we see themes based on becoming famous, on gender transformation, and wealth acquisition, such as in the films and series Almost Famous (2000), The Bill Silvers Show (1955-1959), Filthy Rich (1982-1983), and Tootsie (1982), but these stories at least attempt to address a moral question. Critically, in an artistic - rather than commercial context – the actors (who may play mentees) are not at risk of exploitation (Australia Network News; Bleasby; Crouch). Where actors are paid and recognized creatively for their contribution to an artistic work (Rupel), the mentee in reality television has no involvement in the ways action may be set up for maximum voyeuristic enjoyment, or manipulated to enhance scandalous and salacious content which will return show and media profits (“Reality Show Fights”; Skeggs and Wood 64). The emphasis, ironically, from a reality production point of view, is wholly on making the audience believe (Papacharissi and Mendelson 367) that the content is realistic. This perhaps gives some insight as to why themes of personal suffering and instability are increasingly evident across formats.On an ethical level, unlike the knowledge transferred through complex television plots, or in coming of age films (as cited above) about the ways tradition is handed down, and the ways true mentors provide altruistic help in human experience; in reality television we take away the knowledge that life, under neoliberalism, is most remarkable when one is handpicked to undertake a televised journey featuring their desire for upward mobility. The value of the mentoring in these cases is directly proportionate to the financial objectives of the creative elite.ReferencesAggarwal, Sirpa. “WWE, A&E Networks, and Simplynew Share Benefits of White-Label Social TV Solutions at the Social TV Summit.” Arktan 25 July 2012. 1 August 2014 <http://arktan.com/wwe-ae-networks-and-simplynew-share-benefits-of-white-label-social-tv-solutions-at-the-social-tv-summit/>. 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