Racial Triumph and Success on Reality Game Shows: The American Dream and Race on The Apprentice

Abstract

By investigating an episode of The Apprentice, the study discusses whether reality game shows serve to justify the actual socioeconomic inequality among different racial groups in the U.S. by naturalizing the ideological discourse of the American Dream and Social Darwinism. To identify the ideological implication of the The Apprentice, the study examines whether the respondents accepted the premise of fairness on The Apprentice and how they made sense of the show’s construction of a level playing field in relation to their general understanding of the American Dream and the discrepancies in the economic status among different racial groups in the U.S.