Télé-réalité au Mexique : l'empire de la télévision contre-attaque

At the beginning of the 21st Century, a new television programming format become popular worldwide: the so-called reality shows. This format declined its popularity at the 2010s, when television as a concept slowly declined as the most popular media, giving up its place to YouTube and other social media platforms that began to incorporate video formats in digital support created by prosumers, that were at the same time content producers and consumers of related content. Reality wasn’t in TV; it can be seen directly from producers’ homes. In 2023, Televisa, the Mexico biggest and otherwise very powerful TV broadcasting corporation, launched a new reality show called “La Casa de los Famosos” [The Famous House], in a very similar format from the vintage popular “Big Brother”, a transnational TV format show popular at the beginning of this century. In this new show, Televisa recruited some famous social media influencers to participate in the show. The most significant persona was Wendy Guevara, a transgender woman that become very popular through her funny Internet videos. In the 2024 edition, Adrián Marcelo was included, a controversial influencer known best for his patriarchal assurances. Both characters located in extreme poles of gender considerations. This work aims to analyze how these controversies helped to locate “The Famous House” as a very popular “trending topic” in Mexico, by considering classic Birmingham School of Cultural Studies –Morley, Hall, Jameson–, which considerations are relevant to analyze how TV is working to stay as an important source of content and entertainment for masses.