This paper was presented at the Association for Education in Journalism and
Mass Communication in San Antonio, Texas August 2005.
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Tales of Tattered Romance:
Cheaters TV, Real Reality, & Melodramatic Parody





By:
Joseph C. Harry
Department of Communication
213 Eisenberg
Slippery Rock University
Slippery Rock, Pa.  16057
[log in to unmask]



Submitted to:
AEJMC Entertainment Studies Interest Group
AEJMC annual conference
San Antonio, Texas
August 10-13, 2005


ABSTRACT
The Cheaters syndicated television show is analyzed as a hybrid genre 
that draws on and unwittingly problematizes traditional and 
contemporary notions of romance, technological surveillance, and 
voyeurism by featuring suffering lovers and videotaped exploits of 
their cheating mates. The rhetoric of the text is explored by 
examining its conjuncture within political, economic and 
socio-cultural forces, and by interpreting the program's 
contradictory narrative, ethical, and ideological stance.



"From Cheaters' surveillance cameras you're about to view actual 
true stories, filmed live, documenting the pain of a spouse or lover 
caused by infidelity. This program is both dedicated to the faithful 
and presented to the false-hearted to encourage the renewal of 
temperance and virtue." – Introductory message of Cheaters syndicated 
television program, 2005

Now in its fifth year, Cheaters is an independently produced 
syndicated weekly TV program airing in more than 150 U.S. television 
markets, and reaching more than 75 percent of American homes with 
television. A global phenomenon, it also airs in some 220 television 
markets worldwide (Business Wire, 2004). An hour-long show featuring 
two new "case files" of the unfaithful – men and women, fairly 
equally divided, for the most part, between whites and 
African-Americans, usually straight but sometimes gay, frequently 
unemployed but nearly all working-class, typically in their 20s and 
early 30s – caught in the act, on prerecorded videotape. The show's 
executive producer and co-creator said the show gets about 100,000 
requests a year "for domestic-relations investigations" from people 
who otherwise could not afford an actual private eye, and categorizes 
the show as "true surveillance, spying, true voyeurism" (National 
Post, 2004).
Many Cheaters "clients" are unemployed and Southern (the show is 
based in Dallas), and often yell, shout bleeped-out obscenities and 
get in fistfights with their cheating mate or romantic rival. Most of 
those caught cheating end up signing legal waivers that grant the 
show authorization to air real names and faces, but Cheaters 
sometimes pays up to $2,000 to convince the reluctant, although a 
Cheaters distribution representative claims it is relatively easy to 
get waivers from "younger, lower-income, blue-collar" cheaters and 
their illicit partners (Variety, 2004). Given its saucy subject 
matter, Cheaters has joined a growing list of popular TV shows (most 
notably, Jerry Springer) that are perfect fodder for derisive, 
class-bound metaphors and 'lowbrow' stereotyping, such as the 
following, from The Weekend Australian:
What better way to spend Valentine's Day than with a marathon of 
trailer-trash infidelity? Cheaters, a hypnotic US hyperreality 
series, invites people who think their partner is parking their boots 
under someone else's bed to have the show follow them and then 
initiate a very public brawl. No wonder someone stabbed host Joey 
Greco on camera. What's really hysterical is that after the credits, 
the show promotes its match-making website, because who wouldn't want 
to find love this way? (2005, p. B-30)


Cheaters runs two new case files each Sunday, plus half-hour reruns 
culled from its first several years, which are aired in many markets 
each weeknight. Nielsen ratings indicate the syndicated show has 
garnered the largest young-adult weekend audience, especially among 
the most desirable advertising demographic – women aged 18 to 34, 
whose average viewing of the show, at about 2 million, is about twice 
that of an equally desirable demographic, young men 18 to 34 who 
regularly watch the show (National Post, 2004).
Since going into syndicated reruns as of 2004, the show may for the 
first time make money, perhaps as much as $10 million a year, as its 
original programming costs have already been covered (Business Wire, 
2004). Direct-response advertisers, who hawk products and services 
via 1-800 numbers, provide the revenue to cover the estimated $60,000 
per-production-hour cost (National Post, 2004). The adult-oriented 
content means the show usually airs in most markets sometime after 
midnight, which is, however, also when a large number of its primary 
audience is still awake. Cheaters executive producer and co-creator 
Bobby Goldstein announced in late 2004 that, due to a boost in FCC 
enforcement against indecency (most notably the Janet Jackson 
"wardrobe malfunction" at the 2004 Superbowl), he was editing about 
100 episodes that are aired as weekday reruns to avoid possible FCC 
scrutiny (Associated Press, 2004).
One need only watch the flood of 1-800 ads to guess the show's 
youthful demographic. Most ads tout a variety of dating services, as 
well as personal enhancement products, including anti-balding 
remedies, foot cream (to cure cracked feet), and non-prescription 
diet pills or energy boosters. The latter products are aimed, 
apparently, at the show's upper-age demographic, those in their 
mid-30s. Watching even a few episodes of what Cheaters producers call 
"real reality television" reveals an immediate paradox: Most products 
and services promoted during commercial breaks are designed to make 
one more attractive or available – just the thing that, down the 
road, might make one a prime candidate for infidelity.
This is one of many ironies examined in this exploratory essay. The 
goal is to assess how Cheaters, as a text, articulates its own 
rhetorical message by linking the text to range of real-world forces 
– political, economic, socio-cultural and, finally, ideological – 
that may be seen to act upon the text, without completely or 
necessarily determining it. The kind of 'overdetermined' analysis 
attempts to bring together, or, as Hall (1985) would explain it, 
articulate the "conjuncture" of political, economic, and 
socio-cultural phenomena that may help explain how such a show is 
possible, and popular. For example, the above-mentioned audience data 
documenting Cheaters' programming and marketing logic already provide 
explanatory background for understanding the show as a very specific 
kind of rhetorical construction, the institutional rhetor being the 
Cheaters production team itself.
Hall (1996) explains the concept of articulation, as well as the 
notion of conjuncture, as follows:
"An articulation is thus the form of the connection that can make a 
unity of two different elements, under certain conditions. It is a 
linkage which is not necessary, determined, absolute, and essential 
for all time. You have to ask, under what circumstances can a 
connection be forged or made? So the so-called 'unity' of a discourse 
is really the articulation of different, distinct elements which can 
be rearticulated in different ways because they have no necessary 
'belongingness.' The 'unity' which matters is a linkage between that 
articulated discourse and the social forces with which it can, under 
certain historical conditions, but need not necessarily, be 
connected. Thus a theory of articulation is both a way of 
understanding how ideological elements come, under certain 
conditions, to cohere together within a discourse, and a way of 
asking how they do or do not become articulated, at specific 
conjunctures, to certain political subjects." (pp. 141-142, italics 
in original)

  Grossberg (1996, p. 154) explains that articulation "refers to the 
complex set of historical practices by which we struggle to produce 
identity or structural unity out of, or on top of, complexity, 
difference, contradiction. It signals the absence of guarantees, the 
inability to know in advance the historical significance of 
particular practices. It shifts the question of determination from 
origins…to effects. " Conjunctural analysis, then, attempts to 
analytically 'bring together' and assess relatively autonomous 
elements of a social formation toward a critical interpretation, to 
effect an incomplete totality – a totalization of elements toward an 
overarching interpretation that remains incomplete and open to revision.
Identifying a conjuncture (the "complex set" of historical and, by 
definition, contemporary forces) can only be overdetermined, 
provisional, tendential, thus the critic's resulting articulation of 
a text is itself overdetermined and finally an attempt at theoretical 
intervention that tries to explain the conjuncture between a social 
formation and its articulation, its ideological meaning, in a given 
text. In this interpretive framework, the critic is also involved in 
a rhetorical reading, because the text is seen as having a contested 
but persuasive message designed for a specific audience. Each 
audience member is, however, subject to his or her own social, 
economic and socio-cultural lines of force that collectively inform 
his or her own particular ideological reading of a text, even though 
the text is not endlessly open to just any meaning – its polysemic 
nature is limited by rhetorical structures in the text (Condit, 1989; 
Morley, 1980). This form of interpretation is founded in establishing 
a dialectic, meaning the analysis centers on ironies and 
contradictions indicative of ideological problematics within the text 
(Morley, 1992).
As an entertainment program watched each week by millions, and which 
has an unusual subject matter that calls into question the propriety 
of mass media and its reach into traditionally private domains, 
Cheaters offers an ideal subject for conjunctural analysis, as the 
analysis attempts to assess the meaning of a discourse "from its 
position within a formation," its articulation within a specified 
social structure (Hall, 1996, p. 142). Like any popular text, 
Cheaters offers its viewers "equipment for living," (Burke, 1945), an 
essentially dramatic means of understanding and coping with a portion 
of reality, however ironic and contradictory the message may 
ultimately be. If contemporary society is itself seen as ironic, full 
of contradictions and clashing values that challenge anyone to make 
ethical sense in a clear-cut way, then Cheaters may indeed give 
viewers useful equipment for living, even as its contradictory 
rhetoric and voyeuristic practices may be ethically problematic.
By attempting to make interpretive sense of a relatively new program 
that in many ways breaks generic boundaries, this essay draws on both 
journalistic and scholarly sources in an effort to understand 
real-world and theoretical aspects of television and its relation to 
social structure. The paper explores the program's narrative 
structure and logic, its hybrid-like generic status as text, its 
legal and ethical use of professional eavesdropping and voyeurism, 
and its position within the larger, changing world of commercial 
television. Attention to absences – implicit assumptions the text 
makes but never openly articulates – as well as to contradictions 
will both play an important part of identifying the overdetermined 
nature of the program.
The essay also incorporates a case-study element. In the latter 
portion of the paper one Cheaters episode (of many viewed over 
several months) is interpreted as an emblematic text, an exemplar 
representative of any "case file" offered in any week. The case-study 
analysis provides a close account of the standard proceedings common 
to each episode as a way to empirically anchor the interpretation. 
The program is conceptualized as a conjuncture of the producer's 
economic calculus versus the symbolic reality offered as text; as 
inflecting a generically crafted "melodramatic parody" that, although 
occurring in a non-fiction setting, draws upon but deconstructs 
traditional elements of narrative and storytelling; and finally, as 
an ironic rhetorical text that troubles conventional notions of 
romance, as well as traditional ideas about privacy in an 
increasingly voyeuristic, anxiety ridden world.

Although its closest relative is reality TV, Cheaters does not fit 
neatly into any generic description. It is, from a 
critical-interpretive construct, a postmodern pastiche or hyperreal 
text – a simulacrum or symbolic construction, "more real than the 
real" (Baudrillard, 1988) – that reflects different generic strains 
of influence. In more conventional terms, Cheaters is a program 
hybrid – equal parts reality television, detective show, 
action-adventure spoof, melodramatic soap opera, journalistic 
docudrama, and even game show – viewers know the "contestant" (the 
long-suffering faithful spouse or lover) will get a "pay off" in the 
form of catching the faithless lover with another. Each week Cheaters 
host and deadly serious head sleuth Joey Greco, dressed in standard 
black leather jacket, pants and shirt, and wearing stylish 
black-rimmed glasses, calmly and sternly introduces detective-style 
narratives, following a case-file format, featuring girlfriends, 
boyfriends, live-in lovers, and current and former spouses, all of 
whom suspect the number-one person in their life (a common 
description applied to the wandering party) is in the arms of a 
romantic rival. So upset with strongly sensing but not exactly 
knowing the truth, and unable to afford the several thousand dollars 
it would normally cost to hire an actual private eye, the wounded 
parties invite Cheaters video "detectives" to stake out their 
less-than-committed mates.
The televised result is always the same: The cheater is caught on 
videotape and in recorded telephone conversations in various stages 
of lying and unfaithfulness, including (quite often) having sex, the 
latter of which is always presented to viewers blurred-out to ensure 
the program meets FCC indecency rules. (However, unrated video 
versions of the show available in local video stores do show explicit 
sex scenes, which sometimes last 10 minutes or more. The televised 
episodes, because of a legal prohibition, toy with viewers' 
voyeuristic urges by obscuring the videotaped footage that the true 
voyeur would desire the most.) Typically, the cheated-upon weeps when 
confronted with the videotaped evidence -- although men very often 
take the bad news with stoicism or a sustained look of repressed 
rage. Later, when the obligatory "confrontation" scene occurs, the 
aggrieved party usually expresses outrage and quite often becomes 
violent. A bevy of paid security staff is on hand alongside the 
ever-unsmiling Greco and camera crew to keep the violence from 
getting too out of hand. Once again – just as with the blurring out 
of sex scenes – the complete voyeuristic experience (in this case, of 
raw violence) is policed, thereby limiting and containing full pleasure.
In one episode, Greco himself was actually stabbed by an angry 
cheater, and in another episode a man who arrives with the Cheaters 
crew to his girlfriend's house as she entertains her forbidden lover, 
takes a baseball bat to a television set. He has to be physically 
restrained, by security staff, from punching the wife's 
anguish-filled lover, who scurries out the front door and down the 
neighborhood sidewalk, wearing his blue jeans but carrying his other 
clothes bundled under one arm. More often than not the cheater, after 
shaking off the momentary surprise and deer-in-the-headlights shock 
at being busted, becomes equally enraged at the videotaped invasion 
of privacy, defiant about their right to be left alone while glumly 
acknowledging what they've been up to is not a pretty sight. Quite 
often the cheater offers a kind of last-minute defense, usually that 
they were not getting enough romantic fulfillment on the home front.
Cheaters is a success. It is also, when analyzed as a conjunctural 
television text, a reflection and refraction of various intersecting 
political, economic, socio-cultural and, ultimately, ideological 
forces at work in our contemporary mass-mediated social scene. By 
making public videotaped footage of private romantic acts, Cheaters 
offers its several million weekly viewers a voyeuristic look into 
quarters that, without video and cell-phone technology, would not 
otherwise be possible. It is perhaps the most clear example of what, 
in the age of reality TV, Calvert (2000) calls our contemporary 
"voyeur nation," a mass-mediated, socially acceptable obsession with 
watching others without, unlike the traditional Peeping Tom, ever 
having to leave home or worry, as was once the case with voyeurs, 
about needing psychological treatment (Metzl, 2004). But Cheaters is 
only the most obvious example of mass-media voyeurism. All reality 
television taps into a psychological urge to secretly look at 
otherwise private activities (Thompson, 2001; Metzl, 2004). The last 
15 years has marked the "flowering of voyeur television, shows on 
major networks featuring persons confessing to large viewing 
audiences the most intimate features of their sexual and personal 
lives, and TV 'reality programs' filming personal intimacies" 
(Westin, 2003, p. 8). This relatively new trend in commercial 
television calls into question traditional boundaries between public 
and private, and challenges long-standing privacy claims as well as 
conventional notions of civility (Westin, 2003).
The media have become, since the early 1990s, "one of the major 
invaders of privacy of both the famous and of anyone else caught up 
in public events," the media operating under the guise of the 
public's right-to-know while at the same time understanding the 
marketing value of such low-brow fare – that it is wildly popular 
with audiences and potentially profitable for both journalistic and 
entertainment media (Westin, p. 4).
While most reality TV seeks only to offer sensation and adventure, 
with no more immediately obvious "higher" purpose, Cheaters actually 
does promote, at least in principle, a higher calling – edifying 
entertainment ("to encourage the renewal of temperance and virtue…") 
But if we examine Cheaters, or any television show, in conjunction 
with, at a relatively basic level, its audience demographic, and 
especially the products and services advertised to them, surface 
contradictions may be revealed. The irony inherent in Cheaters is in 
the rhetorical tension it fosters between rank sensationalism and 
"traditional" morality, producing what can be thought of as 
melodramatic parody[1], a farcical, imitative tale dressed up, in 
this case, as "real reality," and which subjects the cheating party 
and his or her illicit mate to public ridicule as punishment for 
violating a romantic bond, or more generally, for violating a trust. 
This would generally describe much of what passes for reality TV 
today, the reality brand being the most popular television form in 
recent years. Cheaters draws on conventional, Victorian norms of 
romance, and then parodies them by treating viewers to voyeuristic 
peeps into otherwise private domains. The parody is enriched by 
Cheaters, in its ads, inviting viewers to purchase a slew of dating 
services, non-prescription pep pills, penis-enlargement concoctions 
and many other personal enhancement products designed to spice up 
one's attractiveness and, inevitably, one's sex life.
If leading television genres are always, in part, reflective of 
emerging and evolving social trends (Feuer, 1991) – such as, in a 
post-911 world, a greater acceptance of reduced privacy and increased 
surveillance within a security-state social mentality, a 
'permanent-emergency' mindset attracted to "extremes," a growing 
reliance on round-the-clock information and communication via a 
variety of media technologies, and an increased desire in consumer 
culture for immediate gratification, pleasure and sensation – then 
Cheaters and other reality shows may now be commercial television's 
"form-in-dominance," just as Feuer (1991) claimed this status for 
melodrama and serialized soap operas during the 1980s and early '90s. 
Cheaters opens up private social terrain that, until very recently in 
history, was closed. The viewer is positioned to vicariously 
experience both the guilty sexual thrill of cheating as well as the 
terror and anger of being caught doing so. The viewer is thus 
rhetorically positioned as both cheater and cheated-upon, but in the 
televised comfort of the living room.
Politically, Cheaters relies upon First Amendment and other legal 
protections, such as those accorded detective agencies, for its right 
to exist. Economically, it understands that a certain advertising and 
cultural marketplace exists for this kind of entertainment, 
especially in the age of reality TV.  Ideologically, the show's 
producers understand that by framing themselves as, in essence, 
service providers – video detectives whose only goal is to make whole 
again what has been corrupted – they remain, in principle, immune to 
criticisms of overt sensationalism, as their show is devoted to 
righting wrongs in the service of encouraging fidelity.
Rhetorically, at least on the surface, Cheaters is all about 
encouraging faithfulness and trust in romance, the basis of healthy 
family life. Thus the call, at each show's opening segment, for the 
"false-hearted" to "renew" temperance and virtue, the assumption 
being that those caught in the act must have once been temperate and 
virtuous. But at a more subterranean rhetorical level Cheaters is all 
about irony, farce, comedy and ridicule and, as a genre, parody – an 
unacknowledged, probably even unwitting spoof on the pitfalls of real 
modern love and romance.
The cheated-upon are always presented in the best possible light, as 
temperate and virtuous, having been done wrong for no good reason. As 
narrative characters they are pitched as honorable protagonists, 
suffering the neglect of their lying and cheating antagonists. This 
is the basis of all melodrama, and a standard feature of narrative. 
In fact, although the situations are real, Cheaters (like all other 
reality TV, fictional shows and, increasingly, news programming) 
draws on all the traditional elements of narrative. This is 
especially true in terms of narrative "kernel" elements: disturbance, 
obstacle, complication, confrontation, crisis, and resolution 
(Porter, Larson et. al, 2002). Each Cheaters episode contains these 
elements in this exact order, making this reality television program 
different from fictional narrative only in its vaunted 
faux-journalistic sense of offering veracity,  "real reality."
Cheaters producers realize 'reality' benefits from the rhetorical 
elements that make a fictional story compelling, suspenseful, and 
dramatic. As Kozloff (1992) notes, the traditional narrative 
story-telling structure permeates virtually all kinds of TV 
programming. Even those programs, such as talk, exercise, or sports 
shows, which normally don't follow narrative logic often incorporate 
elements of it. Narratives "are not the only dominant type of text on 
television, but narrative structure is, to a large extent, the portal 
or grid through which even non-narrative television must pass" 
(Kozloff, 1992, p. 69.) In the time since that was written, it is 
likely that narrative story structure is even more pervasive in the 
television landscape. A traditional dramatic structure may work as an 
inviting and conventionally understood audience lure that helps draw 
in and retain increasingly fickle viewers, about 90 percent of whom 
now have either cable or satellite TV and who, in the demassified 
mass media environment, typically may choose from more than 100 
television channels.
But the rhetorically 'absent' message, and what may be the real basis 
for narrative excitement and drama in Cheaters, is that the 
cheated-upon, regardless of the "pain" caused by their mate's 
infidelity, also want revenge, and in a very public way. It is this 
rhetorically tangled message – between the melodramatic notion of 
faithful good-heartedness and a very real-world, gut-level 
resentment, the basic human urge to "get even" – that makes Cheaters 
worthy of critical analysis as a unique television genre able to 
attract a popular audience by offering troubling, controversial but 
comical kinds of real- reality soap operas.
Case Study
Every Cheaters program follows a standard presentational format that 
never varies. This tightly fixed message format, common to most 
non-fiction television programs, indicates we are being given a brand 
based on a business model, and which creates a product designed to 
deliver the same result, time after time.
The show always begins with a warning to viewers about the mature 
nature of the program, quickly followed by a brief review of the 
evening's two case files. Next, the message (text and male 
voice-over, presented in full at the opening of this paper) – which 
actually functions as a mission statement – is provided: Viewers are 
made aware they will see "actual true stories" documenting the "pain" 
caused by infidelity, with the hope that the evidence will encourage 
a "renewal" of temperance and virtue. Next, viewers are presented a 
montage of footage culled from previous shows, featuring cheaters 
caught in the act, with lovers, spouses and the cheating "others" all 
reacting in mostly violent and highly dramatic ways. This, again, can 
be read as part of the branding process, especially when followed by 
the standard statement (in voice-over), and functioning as a kind of 
brand recognition: "Real reality television, as brought to you by 
Cheaters detective agency's private eyes – on Cheaters." Here, the 
program attempts to differentiate itself from all other "reality" TV 
shows by calling itself "real" reality, the assumption being that 
other reality shows are fabricated. Rhetorically, the producers align 
themselves with the legal-political cover provided by detective 
agencies (private eyes), which serves also to deflect any criticism 
of rank sensationalism. (After all, the message implies, you have a 
legal right to know).
The above information precedes each program, providing a clear 
introduction of what the program's about and an ideological 
justification: Cheaters is here to help those in need of it, the goal 
being to right a romantic wrong, thereby restoring honesty and 
integrity where, at the moment, there is none. Rhetorically, on its 
surface, Cheaters provides, in a voyeuristic entertainment format 
featuring melodramatic stories of wrongdoing and, ultimately, 
redemption, a traditional call for romantic fidelity.
The first episode (of two, during one program) airing in early March 
2005 featured a 38-year-old named Chris Carlisle. Joey Greco, the 
program host, introduces himself and then turns to Chris' case. Chris 
himself (or rather, his mug shot) is first featured at the upper left 
of the screen, inside what looks like a file folder. Greco introduces 
him as, "Chris Carlisle, a stoic figure struggling with his deepest 
fear – his wife's infidelity. Seeking a dignified resolution, an 
embattled Chris appeals to Cheaters for professional assistance." The 
"file folder" that encased Chris' face now turns into a narrowed 
camera lens, still with his face inside it, and is followed by an 
approximately two-minute videotaped discussion provided by Chris, to 
an unseen interviewer, about his tattered relationship. Greco tells 
viewers that Chris is "worried his reconciled ex-wife is expanding 
her romantic horizons with an unknown gentlemen," before Chris tells 
us the story of his relationship. During Chris' brief explanation of 
how things were, and how they now may have gone wrong, a large, 
bright, almost shiny golden heart, ripped down the middle, flows 
across the screen about every thirty seconds, accompanied by a 
"whish" sound effect. This serves to punctuate certain phrases or, 
sometimes, during virtually all scenes in an episode, helps segue 
from one scene to another. This tattered golden heart is superimposed 
over the constant graphical backdrop (during in-studio presentational 
segments from Greco and his "clients") of a deep, vibrant, gauzy 
blue, with the Cheaters logo moving leftward, but always in the 
background, behind the subjects appearing on screen. It is 
interesting to note that the Cheaters logo is framed within a 
graphically produced image of a magnifying glass, the "C" of Cheaters 
forming the circular part of the magnifying glass. The combined 
effect, as a structural rhetorical device, provides significant 
evidence of how television, as a communicator, actually articulates 
its own commercially driven interests.
The above-described visual setting reveals what can be conceptualized 
as the articulation of an "economic calculus" within a "symbolic 
experience," the political-economic and cultural (symbolic) matrix 
that forms the rhetorical basis of all commercial television (Harry, 
2004). What viewers experience in commercial television, as well as 
during promotional ads for any show is, on the one hand, network 
branding and, on the other, the product lure – the dramatic program 
and storyline itself. It is only the latter that is actively attended 
to by viewers, who desire only the "symbolic experience" of a show, 
which is always, however, produced by a rhetor (independent producer, 
or a network producer) whose chief interest is expressed as an 
economic calculus – the attempt to attract the largest possible 
number of viewers within a desired demographic to a certain program, 
to obtain the largest possible ad revenue. In the case of Cheaters, 
especially at this part of the show, but throughout the entire 
program as well, the viewer is constantly, even blatantly made aware 
of the economic calculus behind the show. This occurs in the form of 
program branding – the deep blue background punctuated with a broken 
"heart of gold" (which semiotically represents the aggrieved party 
whose pure – golden – heart has been shattered) superimposed over the 
Cheaters logo, which itself is meshed visually with a magnifying glass.
	The rest of the episode follows a standard format common to every 
episode, and is divided as follows:
Program Promotion (voice-over and visual text)
"If you suspect infidelity in your relationship, Cheaters licensed 
investigators may be able to provide you assistance. Exercise your 
right to be informed."
Introduction, in case-file format, of the cheating party
Julie Carlise, age 41, a homemaker "seeking satisfaction outside her 
current relationship," accompanied by an undercover videotaped moving 
image, in gauzy black-and-white, of Julie in a playground swing, 
where she's accompanied by her lover.
Detailing of investigation, via undercover videotape and 
tape-recorded phone calls
This typically involves several days of investigations, with all 
damning evidence shown, most often in black-and-white. Frequently, 
certain portions are placed into freeze-frame, with a graphically 
produced image of a squared, checkerboard "scope" superimposed around 
the face of one of the guilty parties. The lover is also usually 
introduced by name.
Discrete evidence unique to each case: In this episode, hidden 
cameras installed in Chris and Julie's apartment catch her and her 
lover, Robert, on the couch drinking tequila and, on two separate 
occasions, moving into the bedroom. Cameras catch them having sex, 
but are purposely blurred.
Taped phone call
Each episode offers a taped phone call between the aggrieved party 
and the cheater, with the latter engaging in a lie to cover up where 
they are, or why they are not available on a particular evening.
Evidence indicates cheating has occurred
  A voice-over explains to viewer that, "Cheaters investigators 
reconvene at the Command Center to prepare a final report to Chris."
First commercial break
  A voice-over notes, "Coming up – the confrontation," accompanied by 
brief visual footage of same.
Revelation Scene
  The client is given the damning videotaped evidence. Greco says, 
"With Julie's indiscretions now preserved on tape, Cheaters 
regretfully must confirm Chris' worst suspicions. Driven by his 
desire for the truth, shaken but willful, Chris prepares himself for 
the imminent conclusion." The client then views the videotaped 
evidence, with Greco at one point telling Chris, "That's her tattoo. 
I'm sorry you have to see this." Chris agrees to take advantage of 
"the opportunity" to confront the cheating party, who is with their 
lover nearby.
Van Scene
Chris and Greco are shown driving to the site of the confrontation, 
usually a restaurant or parking lot. In this case, the cheating 
couple is at a lake, leading Chris to comment sardonically, "I'll bet 
you they're not fishin'."
Confrontation Scene
  The main conflict, it usually features shouting and very often, 
violence. Chris and Greco confront Julie and Robert in the park, and 
Chris immediately pushes Robert into the lake. Robert comes out of 
the lake, shirt ripped off, and attempts to hit Chris, but security 
guards intervene.
Unique footage:  In this case, Julie is remorseful, with head in 
hands. "I didn't mean to hurt you," she tells Chris. Greco tries to 
draw her out on why she would leave her three-year-old daughter with 
a babysitter on this particular evening. Greco concludes, speaking to 
Julie: "I don't want to sound like the hard guy, but there are a lot 
of streets named after you." Greco asks Robert, as he and Julie get 
into Robert's truck to leave the scene, "How are you helping her be a 
responsible parent?" As Robert gets into his truck, Chris yells, 
"Y'all are made for each other, Robert!" Robert replies, directing 
his comment to Chris, "She deserves better than that!" Julie yells 
out, "I'm still a good parent!," to which Greco replies, "That might 
be responsible in your world."
Back in the Van for the Ride Home
  Brief dialogue between Greco and Chris ensues about what has 
transpired. "Adults can be more childish than children," Greco 
concludes, attempting to console Chris, who remains stoic throughout 
the episode.
Promotional Voice-Over
  "To learn more about this and other cases, log onto cheaters dot 
com." Cut to commercial break.
Wrap Up
Greco faces the camera to announce: "With the confrontation behind 
him and a fresh outlook on life, Chris struggles to put the events 
into perspective. Later in the show, Cheaters updates you on his progress."
Next Case Introduced
Exact structural format as above.
End of Show, Recap of Both Cases
  In the denouement, Greco reports, facing the in-studio camera, with 
the deep blue graphic backdrop and above-described Cheaters logo: 
Chris says the relationship is over, but will maintain a relationship 
with his daughter (who is from Julie's previous marriage). Julie 
explains her actions by a "need for attention," complaining Chris had 
"an inability to show sensitivity" to her and others close to him. 
Robert, we are informed, has no feelings for Julie – the two had only 
a sexual relationship.
Discussion
As a rhetorical text, Cheaters is an articulation of a particular 
historical conjuncture of economic, political and socio-cultural 
forces, which collectively inflect the program with a fairly 
straightforward surface (denotative) message but at a deeper, 
connotative level, a more complex and contradictory message, the 
latter of which can be read as ideological. As Seiter (1992, p. 39) 
notes, "Connotative meanings land us squarely in the domain of 
ideology: the worldview (including the model of social relations and 
their causes) portrayed from a particular position and set of 
interests in society." From a conjunctural-interpretive framework, 
ideology is seen as an over-determined confluence of political, 
economic, and socio-cultural forces, none of which are in themselves 
determinate but all of which a textual critic brings together as an 
argument for a certain ideological reading of a given text at a 
definitive point in history. White (1992), applying ideological 
criticism to commercial television, explains that such criticism "is 
concerned with the ways in which cultural practices and 
artifacts…produce particular knowledges and positions for their 
users. These knowledges and positions link viewers with and allow 
reception of the economic and class interests of the television 
industry" (p. 163). Ideological analysis is "produced in specific 
historical contexts, by and for specific social groups," and thus 
cultural artifacts express and promote "values, beliefs and ideas in 
relation to the contexts in which they are produced, distributed, and 
received" (White, p. 163).
Political, economic and socio-cultural forces provide a historical 
conjuncture within which an ideological message, and interpretation, 
is articulated. Politically, Cheaters takes advantage of First 
Amendment protections governing free speech, including the right to 
videotape people in public places (restaurants, sidewalks, parking 
lots) as well as (with consent) in their private residences. In many 
episodes, such as the case-study portion of this paper, the "client" 
(Chris) agrees to have Cheaters undercover cameras installed in the 
residence he shares with his cheating girlfriend. She is not legally 
protected from being secretly videotaped, provided Chris has given 
his legal consent to have cameras installed in the residence they 
share. The legal protections afforded such undercover recording – 
whether undercover or out in the open – exist quite apart, at least 
in principle, from any ethical considerations that may arise. 
Cheaters relies on these protections for its legal and political 
right to exist as an "undercover" reality TV show; its popularity 
depends upon the political.
Economically, Cheaters has successfully crafted a marketable cultural 
product that targets a valuable audience demographic, the relatively 
youthful who enjoy reality television and who are most likely to 
respond to the 1-800 dating services and personal-enhancement product 
ads that finance the Cheaters program. An irony absent in the surface 
message, but clear from linking the ad programming to the actual 
program, is that Cheaters appeals to its viewers' personal vanity 
(the desire to enhance ones attractiveness), a quality that may also 
enhance one's propensity for illicit affairs. Indeed, during each 
program Cheaters promotes its own dating service (nocheaters.com). 
Cheaters thus actively sponsors (and profits from) an in-house 
service whose name ("no cheaters") connotes the program's "temperance 
and virtue" rhetoric, but which, by bringing singles together into 
supposedly trusting relationships actually creates a precondition for 
potentially illicit affairs down the road, since there's no assurance 
any couple brought together by any dating service will remain loyal. 
(One day, Cheaters may be able to feature an estranged couple that, 
if truth in advertising is worth anything, will acknowledge that they 
met through Cheaters' dating service.) In this way, Cheaters mixes 
its true-romance ideology with a separate, profit-generating side 
business, a kind of "value-added" portion of the overall Cheaters 
business model. This mixture of program and in-house advertising may 
be especially prevalent in the reality TV genre (American 
Demographics, July 1, 2001), and is an example of 'advertainment," an 
emerging trend wherein ads and entertainment programming merge fairly 
seamlessly (Deery, 2004). Having remained on the air for five years, 
Cheaters has positioned itself to finally begin to profit from 
second-run (re-run) syndication, where all ad revenues are pure 
profit. This only enhances the show's economic viability, ensuring 
its continued popularity as an ever-more-profitable cultural product 
in a tightly controlled, fragmented, demassified television marketplace.
At the socio-cultural level, Cheaters producers understand that 
traditional notions of privacy as well as social-psychological mores 
pertaining to voyeurism are in flux, especially at a time when media 
technologies such as the Internet, cell phones, video cameras, and 
satellite and cable television all produce an ever-greater flow of 
information, allowing once-private matters to be recorded and 
instantly broadcast. In this escalating information environment media 
users themselves confront uncertain boundaries about the 
right-to-privacy (especially in a surveillance-heavy post-911 era) 
and, flooded with "Survivor"-like reality shows (all the way to 
grotesque programs documenting plastic surgery), face real questions 
about what subject matter is, or should be, off limits. "Voyeurism 
TV" (VTV) is already a concept utilized in the video age. Traditional 
pathological diagnoses of voyeurism, casting voyeurs as "sick" and in 
need of psychological treatment or even drug therapy, have "limited 
relevance in a world where it is at times difficult to distinguish 
hard-core paraphiliacs who require psychiatric interventions from the 
many amateurs who simply watch VTV programs" (Metzl, 2004, p. 127.) 
In fact, a narrowly defined psychiatric definition of voyeurism 
versus a fairly broad category of "acceptable" voyeurism has emerged 
only in late 20th century (Metzl, 2004). Voyeuristic television, and 
consequent revaluations regarding the nature and dangers of voyeurism 
– is it a psychiatric condition or just harmless entertainment?  -- 
provides a stark example of media effects in action. To the degree 
media consumers benefit from or simply enjoy new kinds of 
reality-show information, they ultimately, over a period of time, 
will likely question (implicitly or explicitly) their own views of 
privacy and, at the voyeuristic level, what is or is not appropriate 
to view. Cheaters operates in a media-technology environment that, by 
its continued presence, must unavoidably expand and question 
traditional notions of privacy, voyeurism, and surveillance. The 
undercover camera and the cell phone are central in Cheaters "getting 
the evidence" and once broadcast, this material invites viewers to 
peek into what at best are ethically problematic private domains.
Cheaters recognizes, also at the socio-cultural level, that 
traditional notions of romance have long been troubled and 
challenged, now more than ever. Cheaters, upon close inspection, 
steps out of its "traditional" moral environment to adopt a 
liberal-pluralistic view of romance, sometimes featuring episodes 
involving, for example, gay couples, not to mention the many couples 
who live together – which from a traditional moral viewpoint would be 
"living in sin." The program thus never questions a belief common to 
many traditional religions – that one should save sex for marriage. 
Most estranged couples featured on Cheaters are not married, a great 
many are divorced, many live together. The invocation of the 
program's mission statement to "renew" temperance and virtue implies 
that these Victorian moral qualities need not be associated, as they 
traditionally have been, with married love. Implicit in this message 
is also the (absent) assumption that the characters featured in any 
episode were once temperate and virtuous. At this socio-cultural 
level, then, is an ideological problematic: Ironically, Cheaters 
paints at one level a traditional-ethical picture of what romance 
should be, but in other ways deconstructs its own surface call for 
"temperance and virtue" by never really passing moral judgment on 
anything other than, ultimately, the wrongness of deception itself. 
In short, Cheaters projects a story of melodramatic parody, an 
essentially amoral stance, which is the generic-ideological basis of 
its parodic take on modern romance.
On the surface, Cheaters is simply a program dedicated to righting a 
wrong. It invites those who suspect they're being hurt by their 
partner's unfaithfulness to learn the truth, but also to extract 
justice in the form of  "busting" the cheater on camera – for all the 
world to see. Viewers are positioned to sympathize with the injured 
party but also to obtain vicarious pleasure from watching the 
"false-hearted" caught, sometimes literally, with their pants down. 
In this respect, the viewer experiences some of the emotions of the 
Cheaters "client" – pain at being deceived in the worst possible way, 
plus full-bore resentment promoting a desire to get even in a way 
that itself is ethically questionable. It is here where the show's 
voyeuristic element truly comes into play, because rarely does the 
public get to witness such up-close-and-personal outrage. Viewers 
experience the excitement of watching an open confrontation, but also 
inevitably must reflect upon the discomfort of the cheating parties 
as well as the ethics of invading what is, for all its covert 
tawdriness, a private, legal activity: Cheating is immoral, not illegal.
On the rhetorical surface Cheaters construes romance and the act of 
cheating in staunchly moral, melodramatic terms – with its 
"false-hearted" antagonists, and virtuous, temperate protagonists who 
always declare the purest intentions before riding to the scene of 
the videotaped "confrontation." But at a deeper connotative level, 
given the nature of its ads, the promotion of its own dating service, 
and the voyeuristic practices and privacy-invasion underlying its 
narratives, Cheaters actually promotes not a moral but an amoral 
stance. As program executive producer Goldstein acknowledges: "I just 
want to make TV programs." Cheaters is merely adopting the ethical 
stance common to all mass-media cultural products designed for 
popular commercial consumption – amorality, the ethical basis of the 
liberal-pluralist capitalist marketplace, where high ratings, ad 
revenues, and mostly conventional (and politically conservative) 
storylines are the basic business model. The parodic rhetoric of 
Cheaters lies in the fact that it draws on these conservative, 
conventional notions of romance in a plotline that positions readers 
to, at first blush, take seriously traditional notions of love and 
trust but, when deconstructed, actually treats viewers to a comical, 
farcical, public ridicule and thrashing of those caught violating the 
Victorian norms, while the 1-800 ads slotted in between program 
segments scream endlessly – sex, sex, more sex. In one episode, 
Cheaters "detectives" break into a hotel room where the cheating 
party is dressed in a sadomasochistic black-leather mask, chains and 
other bondage garb as he's whipped by a female prostitute. The 
embarrassed object of ridicule runs down the hallway and outdoors 
onto the sidewalk to escape the glaring cameras. In another episode, 
the cheating man, when busted by the Cheaters squad, jumps into the 
back of his pickup truck, grabs a sharp-pointed pole used to capture 
small farm animals, and threatens to use it on Cheaters security 
guards. He kicks over a cooler, and out pops the severed head of a 
pig. "What's that?" the normally staid head-detective, Joey Greco, 
asks. The man explains that he sells them as food to local Mexicans, 
then gets back to the business of defending himself against the 
Cheaters invading force. At this point, the real reality show has 
morphed into a high-jinx farce – not quite soap opera, not quite reality TV.
Thus, the text poses yet another ideological problematic, an implicit 
contradiction: the tension between the vicarious thrill of a 
voyeuristic experience (watching cheaters get clandestinely 
"investigated" and then caught) and the questionable ethics of 
invading someone's private affair. The viewer is rhetorically 
positioned as a spectator experiencing what must, for many, be a 
guilty pleasure. The guilt relates not only to the voyeuristic thrill 
but also to an ingrained American political belief in the "right to 
privacy." Cheaters implicitly tells its audience: Those who cheat 
don't deserve privacy, and watching their private acts being busted 
up is, by the way, quite a lot of fun. In the final analysis, 
Cheaters relies on the depiction of a mean-spirited desire for open 
revenge, a hallmark of many competition-oriented reality shows, as 
the rhetorical underpinning of each episode.
As Cheaters "clients" view the videotaped evidence of their partner 
up to no good, many cry, and all express anger and resentment. But 
absent from the surface text is any discussion regarding whether the 
cheaters are actually deserving of the public disgrace that always 
befalls them as a narrative element in "Confrontation" scene. In 
fact, it is the confrontation that offers viewers the only truly 
unique storyline, because it is the only unscripted, thoroughly 
existential part of the show. One never knows just how the angry, 
estranged lovers (not to mention the secret partner) will interact 
when the bright lights and security staff finally catch them on tape. 
But viewers are certain there will be plenty of tears, rage, 
recrimination, and weak-kneed alibis, alongside detective-host Joey 
Greco serving as one-man Greek chorus by attempting to get cheaters 
to morally justify their immoral actions, even as the text, when 
deconstructed, plays the whole thing as an amoral parody of modern romance.
Conclusion
Reality TV has gained a strong foothold in the American television 
landscape, with nearly 50 percent of Americans as far back as 2001 
reporting that they watched it. The audience segment most likely to 
watch is the very desirable 18-to-24-year-olds, but the biggest 
segment of the audience for reality TV is actually 35-to-49-year-olds 
(American Demographics, Sept. 1, 2001). As a genre, reality TV 
attracts a wide swath of viewers, with no end in sight. It is 
arguably the current "form-in-dominance" in commercial television. 
While generically close to reality the TV genre, Cheaters breaks the 
mold by its postmodern borrowing of elements from an array of other 
recognized forms (especially the fixed format of the game show, and 
the sleuthing maneuvers of the detective show). But reality TV and 
its spawns all conform to a grab bag of generic elements. "Reality TV 
combines the 'live' qualities of the Game of the Week – spontaneous 
actions, uncertain outcomes – with the voyeurism of The Jerry 
Springer Show, and the hackneyed, ongoing narrative of a soap opera" 
(American Demographics, July 1, 2001). Cheaters goes somewhat beyond 
this, however, with its controversial and ethically problematic 
subject matter, making it unique to television – "equipment for 
living" in a postmodern age of constant information and surveillance, 
where the Constitutionally derived right to privacy is perhaps more 
challenged and fragmented than ever. The show unwittingly invites a 
critically minded viewer to contemplate not only the propriety of 
voyeurism but also its link to an ongoing expansion in the post-911 
world of surveillance for both entertainment and national security 
purposes, and all points in between. Some predict that as the use of 
surveillance technology becomes more pervasive, pressure may mount 
for laws that are likely to limit its scope (Westin, 2004) to ensure 
America's hallowed right-to-privacy is more than just a clichι. If 
Cheaters' controversial use of voyeuristic surveillance contributes 
to such a dialogue, then the show will inadvertently serve a valuable 
public service.
As a contemporary television narrative, Cheaters relies on standard 
narrative elements that have always made for a good story, including 
strong characters, conflict, and thematic resolution. Audiences have 
grown used to such narrative traditions, with large numbers reporting 
they watch reality TV just to see conflict break out (American 
Demographics, Sept. 1, 2001). Like virtually all commercial mass 
media products, Cheaters articulates a distinct but by no means 
one-dimensional message, the conjunctural product of intersecting 
political, economic and socio-cultural realities. It draws on 
available legal-political protections, on a defined 
economic-marketing strategy, and on both traditional and emerging 
social and cultural notions of privacy and romance to craft its 
storyline, its business logic, and its overarching ideology. In this 
way, Cheaters, like all cultural products, exists as both an economic 
calculus (from the producer's vantage point), and from the viewer's 
vantage point as a symbolic experience within the broader realm of 
popular culture. On a more fundamental level, Cheaters translates the 
most basic violation of the romantic bond – infidelity – into an 
actionable case, but in the rhetorical form of commercial 
melodramatic parody, which is also the basis of its amoral ethical stance.
	Watching many episodes closely, it also becomes clear that the 
cheating partner caught in the bright lights of Cheaters surveillance 
cameras has almost been expecting it. The guilty party often appears 
to know about or has watched Cheaters, because their actions and 
demeanor are relatively calm and defiant, even confident in front of 
the cameras. As Cheaters producers acknowledge, most caught on camera 
easily agree to have their names and faces shown (in some cases 
induced by cash offers, though this is never made known in the show). 
So many agreeing to "go public" with their tawdry transgressions may 
seem odd. But it may be that in the ever-expanding age of 
information, surveillance, and instant celebrity, the clichι of 
having one's fifteen minutes of fame is now virtually irresistible.
Apparently, for many, it's actually cool to be on Cheaters, including 
for both the lovelorn "clients" who initiate the "investigation" and 
seek revenge, and the guilty parties who have lots of explaining to 
do. If so, then Cheaters is thoroughly postmodern, both in its own 
parodic twist on melodramatic romance and in its program 
participants' willingness to publicly ridicule and exploit themselves 
and their false-hearted mates: Even most of those busted on camera 
agree to go public, and can then sit home and watch, and videotape, 
their very own episode, then add it to their personal scrapbook as a 
badge of honor. This kind of postmodern, public self-ridicule, with 
its connections to fame and faux celebrity is itself a contemporary 
parody of  "real" life, and a new and little-understood element in 
contemporary reality television that deserves more analysis.
Cheaters' weekly doses of melodramatic parody are finally, then, a 
postmodern put-on, a comical, leering farce: My ex-lover has agreed 
to go public, so why not I? As a program focused on tightly 
constructed imagery marketed as "real reality television," Cheaters 
may perhaps be best understood as pure simulacra, a spectral image 
bearing "no relation to any reality whatever" (Baudrillard, 1988, p. 
170) other than its own radiating presence. Real reality TV would 
then truly be, in Baudrillard's sense, hyperreal – more real than the real.
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[1]  Melodrama can be defined as the "indulgence of strong 
emotionalism; moral polarization and schematization; extreme states 
of being, situations, action; overt villainy, persecution of the 
good, and final reward of virtue; inflated and extravagant 
expression; dark plottings, [and] suspense…" (Feuer, 1991, p. 165; 
citing Brooks, 1976). Parody is "a literary or musical work in which 
the style of an author or work is closely imitated for comic effect 
or in ridicule" (Webster's Dictionary, 1971).