The Fat Ass Kelly Price Episode of Catfish is a Shakespearean Tragedy (and Yes I Can Prove It)
All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts...
The term “Shakespearean Tragedy” is something we as a culture throw around haphazardly. And I can understand why. Our world is filled to the brim with fictional and real narratives about the follies of man, especially in the realm of television. From The Wire, Breaking Bad, Mad Men, and more, it’s not hard to see how Shakespeare influenced the writers of our time. I mean, Succession is just a repackaged King Lear for the modern era. While “Shakespearean Tragedy” is usually attributed to high-brow prestige media, it was during a rewatch of the reality TV show Catfish that made me think of the term in a new light. The episode, known colloquially as “The Fat Ass Kelly Price episode,” is filled to the brim with the same telltale tropes of Shakespeare’s tales of woe–betrayal, suspicion, and revenge. But how can the term be flexible enough to cover Walter White’s fall from grace and a random episode from a reality TV show? I plan to explore just that in this essay.
What is a Shakespearean Tragedy?
Before we can dig into what a Shakespearean Tragedy is, we first must ask, what does it mean for something to be Shakespearean? Does the content of the work have to match the standard structure of a Shakespeare play? Do the characters have to resemble, at least in part, the characters in his plays? Or is it based purely on the general atmosphere his plays generate? This deleted Redditor’s comment on this post spoke to me: “Realistically, it doesn’t mean anything without context. Shakespeare was known for too many things. You can be Shakespearean in genre, character focus, pentameter, language, and more.” But if Shakespearean is too broad a term, how can we reliably define something as a Shakespearean tragedy?
In his essay What is Shakespearean Tragedy, Paul A. Kottman argues that human beings are objects acted upon by our society’s ideals and our environment’s constraints. Still, at the same time, we’re individuals capable of determining our own path through life. Because of this, art is a vital human practice as it allows us to evaluate who we are and who we might become (Kottman, pg 5). The philosopher Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel makes a similar conclusion in his Lectures on Fine Art. “Art…allows a free human being to ‘strip the external world of its inflexible foreignness and to enjoy in the shape of things only an external realization of himself” (Kottman, pg 6-7). Thus, the more we view ourselves as self-determining subjects, the less we need to rely on artistic expressions that require physical media to understand ourselves or the world. So, to Hegel, the authentic expression of ourselves couldn’t be through paint or sculpture. Instead, it would be a medium that doesn’t require physical translation, i.e., you need paint to make a painting, clay to make a sculpture, and so on. With this in mind, from Hegel’s perspective, the most human form of art is speech/communication itself, which most humans can do innately.
So, in Kottman and Hegel’s eyes, dramatic poetry (plays/theater) is inherently freer than other media because its medium—communication and action—does not require elements outside the human experience to exist. Before Shakespeare, Greek and Roman plays were the dominant modes of dramatic poetry. This form of theatre focused on the “relation between family life and city life; or the struggle between ancient religious beliefs and (then) contemporary political values; or the choreography of protagonists and polis (or chorus)...” (Kottman, pg 11). They conclude with a clear “point” or moral rooted in the audience’s understanding of the play’s events and characters within the larger context of the setting. This paints a “God’s-eye, a-historical view” of the play (Kottman, pg 12).
On the other hand, Shakespeare’s plays include a wide cast of characters with their own subjective perspective on the unfolding events. In its conclusion, there is a lack of a cohesive, singular, objective view of the play. That is why his tragedies lack closure or end with poetic waste; there is no one correct viewpoint or conclusion from the play’s events. Thus, human action within his plays stems from the characters’ subjective experiences rather than their tie to the grander world.
So when you strip a Shakespearean play of its exterior elements, it becomes not far-out tales of royalty and high-standing people but quarrels between men. Kottman notes the following: “Rather than ask us to grasp what Antony’s fate means for Rome, or what Hamlet’s fate means for Denmark, Shakespeare invites us to determine why (or if) Antony’s and Hamlet’s actions matter, without relying on any external values or norms to anchor that meaning” (Kottman, pg 16). In doing so, Shakespeare gives the protagonists of his plays the subjective freedom to ignore or dissolve the social bonds of their high standing—“kinship ties, civic relations, economic dependencies, or political allegiances” (Kottman, pg 13). That’s why Shakespeare’s work marks a stark contrast from his predecessors. The same social bonds he dissolves define Greek and Roman theatre. By doing so, Shakespeare’s tragedies become the very definition of authentic human artistic expression that Hegel mentioned. Thus, his plays transcend the setting and social dynamics from which they were born.
Because of this, Shakespeare has no particular viewpoint on human life that he is trying to impose on the audience. So it’s with this freedom that Kottman concludes that each performance of a Shakespearean work has to contend with what it is and what it might become (Kottman, pg 10). That’s why there are so many interpretations of Shakespeare’s plays, and the term “Shakespearean Tragedy” is so flexible. So, to conclude, what makes something a Shakespearean tragedy isn’t just the baseline similarities, but instead it must accomplish the following:
It exists for itself. It does not accomplish any “other universally recognized cultural (social, civic, religious) task” (Kottman, pg 10).
Dissolve social norms or rituals to explore the subjective individual experiences of its cast.
Not conclude with a clear “point” or conclusion attributed to the larger context of the world these plays inhabit.
While researching this segment, I realized something. Don’t all of these things apply to reality TV? And if they do, how?
Scripted Unscripted Reality
The 1998 documentary Gerrie & Louise follows Gerrie, a colonel in the South African Defense Force, and Louise, one of South Africa’s top investigative journalists, working to expose government hit squads and the men who ran them—men like Gerrie (IMDB). During a pivotal scene, Louise interrogates Gerrie on his involvement in committing war crimes. She asks him if he considers confessions made by prisoners under torture trustworthy, and he does. In his view, “you don’t lie when your life depends on it,” and then adds, “but I have changed” (Becker, pg 10). After saying that, Gerrie briefly looks up, directing his gaze past the camera.
Viewers of the documentary interpreted this look as a sign of guilt and dismissed Gerrie for being untrustworthy and, at worst, a potential war criminal. However, the editor, Manfred W. Becker, removed the sound of a ringing doorbell that caused Gerrie to look up. With a single omission, Becker completely skewed the audience’s understanding of Gerrie’s character. It’s an editing decision that he feels violates an unspoken contract with the audience “that stipulates that events unfolding on the screen reflect what took place in reality as captured by the camera” (Becker, pg 12).
This edit marks the foundation of Becker’s book, Creating Reality in Factual Television: The Frankenbite and Other Fakes, exploring the ethical responsibilities of those who work in unscripted entertainment to their audience. Becker later notes that editing “...however elegant, disrupts the stability of observation and destroys any possibility of the viewer comprehending the wholeness of the actual event” (Becker, pg 83). That is where the ethical dilemma of editing comes in: What comes first, relaying the reality of the situation or ensuring the presented narrative is gripping? This question is further complicated when subjects move from fully well-rounded people to “editing material.” So, in unscripted entertainment, no matter how dedicated the team is to representing the world accurately, editing naturally leads to the distortion of reality. However, documentaries and reality TV handle this distortion in surprisingly different ways.
Documentaries
Unlike other unscripted content, documentaries have a strict purpose and explore life within the context of the period examined. In her thesis, The Rhetoric of Reality Television: A Narrative Analysis of the Structure of “Illusion,” Gwendolynne Collins Reid mentions that documentaries traditionally have three functions in our society: civic, journalistic, and interrogative (Reid, pg 13). However, despite documentarians’ best intentions to be faithful to reality, documentaries are still a form of entertainment. Because of this, the quality of the information presented can become skewed.
However, the extent to which said information can be skewed is shocking. In some cases, “[e]ditors were told to ‘goose up the danger’ (Int. 24) or ‘completely fabricate an emergency situation’ (Int. 34). Another said that they had edited a documentary about a transatlantic ocean liner. Since it traversed the same route as the Titanic, we were pressured to play up the danger of transatlantic passages in general. Even though ships now have numerous safety redundancies, like more lifeboats than they need, we were still pressured to ‘raise the stakes’ in the editing,” (Becker, pg 74). With this in mind, the reality that documentaries portray can be manipulated to favor the audience and add value to the media product being sold. Despite this, when audiences hear the word “documentary,” they automatically associate it with the truth and deem it more reliable, unlike reality TV. So, how do documentarians limit the distortion of reality that comes with editing and further define the genre away from reality TV?
One way is to make their role in creating the documentary more transparent. “Michael Moore [steps] out from behind the camera and [gives] viewers access to both his interview questions and his respondents’ answers…other [documentarians] strive to balance and complicate their films with multiple perspectives and counterarguments, in effect complicating our notion of truth and objective “reality“ (Reid, pg 21). Taking these steps ensures the documentary isn’t limited by the creator’s outlook on the events they cover. Further, like any entertainment genre, there will always be a difference in the quality of its entries. However, good documentarians acknowledge the distortion of reality that can occur and course correct.
So, because of the genre’s dedication to portraying the social and environmental norms of the period they explore, documentaries are reminiscent of Kottman’s descriptions of Greek and Roman theater. Of course, this dedication to reality can become warped, as previously discussed. But it never goes into the realm of complete fiction or fabrication. Doing so would dissolve the audience’s trust in the work as an educational authority and muddle its intended message. However, reality TV takes the opposite approach. It dissolves the ethics that documentaries abide by for heightened drama to an intriguing effect.
Reality TV
Reality TV uses the same tools as documentaries to make them seem factual, but ultimately ignores its counterparts’ ethical and social concerns. Media scholar Richard Kilborn defines reality TV as “[involving] (a) the recording, on the wing, and frequently with the help of lightweight video equipment, of events in the lives of individuals or [a] group, (b) the attempt to simulate such real-life events through various forms of dramatized reconstruction and (c) the incorporation of this material, in suitably edited form, into an attractively packaged television program which can be promoted on the strength of its “reality” credentials.” (Becker, pg 25). Here, there is no hesitation in mentioning how reality TV uses dramatization and simulation to make the audience feel like what they’re witnessing is reality. However, this form of reality distortion goes beyond the basic reconstruction of reality to reality being scripted in advance.
Often, reality TV producers already know how the episode will turn out and twist reality to fit the story they want to tell. Take the show House Hunters, for example. In the show, couples see three houses before choosing the home they want to buy. However, the couple has already purchased one of the houses beforehand. So, their journey to look at the other two houses is more for audience engagement than the actual reality of the couples.
Another example is Storage Wars. One of the show’s contestants alleged that “producers would purchase multiple units in bulk and then plant valuable items into the ones that their characters won.” If reality TV shows were forced to acknowledge just how scripted their shows are publicly, it would cause labor disputes. That’s why producers and broadcasters emphasize the “unscripted” nature of their programming. By doing so, they bypass the need to employ unionized writers and rely on editors to shape the storylines of their shows (Becker, pg 26).
Thus, editors are tasked with “building the story in the editing bay,” and expect that they “might be relied upon to write narration” (Becker, pg 27). This brings us back to Becker’s question of ethics in the editing room. When the truth can be manipulated for the sake of audience engagement, then editors, and by that metric, producers, can be considered the show’s writers. Because of this, reality TV leans so far into reality distortion that they often seem to create their own versions of reality. The real question is, how different are these new realities from standard fictional content?
Reality TV and Hyperreality
As mentioned, reality TV exists in a fugue state between truth and fiction. Becker notes, “...In juxtaposing realities that are temporally, visually, and audibly distinct, new patterns of space and time result” (Becker, pg 82). Thus, through editing, the genre births a new, distinctive form of reality that influences the audience to engage with it over objective reality. It’s an idea that fits cleanly into Jean Baudrillard’s concept of hyperreality. But what is hyperreality?
To understand hyperreality, we first need to define a simulacrum. As Baudrillard defined it, a simulacrum occurs when representations of reality replace reality itself. Because of this, it’s become nearly impossible to distinguish between the real and the unreal in our modern world. This blended notion of reality and simulacrum is considered hyperreality. In her thesis, The representation of online daters in reality TV: An analysis of ‘Catfish: The TV Show,’ Elise Van Neygen mentions, “…Reality TV shows an imitation of reality without the original, creating its own reality...[T]he producers, who use fictional techniques dramatizing events, create a hyperreality.” (Van Neygen, pg 14). It’s within this state of hyperreality that Reality TV shows create and maintain a sense of logic outside the realm of actual reality. This new reality is often based on increasingly surreal editing techniques that provide a playbook for how the audience should engage with the show.
Take this clip from the most recent season of RuPaul’s Drag Race, for example. This episode is the seminal musical episode of the season. It’s the perfect stage for Suzie Toot, one of the competing drag queens, to gain her third win of the season. But a wrench is thrown in her plans when her fellow queen, Acacia Forgot, vies for the same role Suzie wants. (Acacia is the blonde with the mullet.)
As the season progresses, Suzie’s storyline is defined by her growing diva energy. She takes charge during group challenges, speaks over her teammates, has a one-sided rivalry with Onya Nerve, among other things. Now, these examples are relatively rooted in reality. Suzie did these actions, and the camera caught and relayed her actions with (seemingly) little involvement from the editors. However, this next scene is different. Try and catch the editing technique editors used to bolster Suzie’s diva nature to the audience.
This example of editing is incredibly subtle, but Twitter user @rsmahii noticed something was off in this scene. When we get a full shot of the girls sitting in their chairs, we can see that Suzie and Acacia are sitting right next to each other.
Acacia is wearing a darker green hoodie, and you can see that same green hoodie when Suzie supposedly smiles at Acacia, struggling at the mic.
So Suzie’s reaction shot here isn’t her reacting to Acacia’s performance at all, but it has been spliced to make it seem like she’s rooting for Acacia’s downfall. By making these edits, the editors artificially skew the reality of what was filmed to heighten the tension in the scene. Thus, they used reality to create a fictional plot point (simulacrum) for Suzie’s diva storyline.
Because edits like this one generate hyperreality, reality TV gains multiple attributes of fiction. In doing so, reality TV encompasses the same traits of a Shakespearean tragedy, as defined by Kottman.
Reality TV does not exist to accomplish any social or material task. Instead, it focuses on the minutiae of the lives of those the camera follows.
Reality TV is focused on the subjective experience of the subjects, as seen by its use of secluded interviews. This focus on subjectivity makes the audience care not about the exact situation the show presents, but rather identify with the person’s subjective experiences.
There is no singular conclusive takeaway one can grasp after watching reality TV.
However, the similarities between Shakespeare and Reality TV go beyond the central thematic elements. Both works also use similar tactics to draw the audience into the narrative. In his essay Spectorial Distance in Shakespearean Tragedy, Kent Cartwright observes the following in Shakespeare’s plays. “Engagement connotes that immediate sympathetic response, physical and emotional, that we make to character acting, language, or action, the experience of being absorbed, lost in the event…” (Cartwright, pg 12). So, by generating empathy, a work can engage the audience and ingratiate them with the characters in the play.
Shakespeare detaches the audience by disrupting that empathy and putting a barrier between the audience and the characters. “Detachments includes our interpretations aroused from moment to moment, our sense of removal from the point of view of any single character, our contrasting of events and attitudes, our awareness of illusion, our moral or intellectual judgments as invited by the dramatic context, and even our hypotheses about “facts”…at the heart of detachment lies doubt” (Cartwright, pg 26). But how does this relate to Reality TV?
Reality TV shows are empathy machines. As mentioned, they turn the truth, or objective reality, into a tool for fiction. Van Neygen explores this concept further. “Observational realism refers to a set of conventions confirming that what we are watching is an ongoing and partly media-independent reality…[like] the cameras we can constantly see, but at the same time they seem hidden, exposing reality as it is happening. Expositional realism refers to claims of truth and accuracy that most documentaries rely on. Both forms of realism use techniques to convince the audience that they are observing real life such as handheld cameras, nonactors, the assurance of unscripted filming and the reproduction of social issues” (Van Neygen, pg 38). In this way, Reality TV uses objective reality to engage the audience by heightening their interpretation of the fiction.
Reality TV detaches the audience by breaking the norms of the show. When there’s an earth-shattering reveal or reversal of fortune, shows often pause their usual coverage to cover the drama from all angles. They try to make the drama as serious as possible. Hence, the audience feels the betrayal alongside the cast, even though ultimately the producers are in control of the narrative the whole time. This detachment creates doubt/fear about what will happen next, generating engagement. Cartwright continues, saying, “Detachment toward the illusion, we might even say, becomes participation in the illusion making” (Cartwright, pg 29).
In reality TV, the fiction that the show sells to the audience is broken up by introducing controlled drama and real-life confusion. This tension between reality and fiction detaches and engages the audience. But what happens when actual reality breaks the illusion of hyperreality? Well, you’d get Catfish.
Catfish: The Show
On paper, the show Catfish is a relatively straightforward concept. Catfishing is when someone creates a fake online persona to deceive others. Catfish: The Show aims to help those who feel like their romantic partners are catfishing them by revealing their true faces. By investigating their partners, hosts Yaniv ‘Nev’ Schulman and his filmmaker friend Max Joseph aim to stage a meeting between the victim and their catfish to varying results. Sometimes, the catfish is actually who they say they are. But more often than not, they are lying. The drama generated during the confrontations between the victim and the catfish keeps audiences like me glued to their seats.
When broken down to its bare bones, Catfish isn’t that unique of a concept. The audience is introduced to a situation in which there are two options. Either Person A is being catfished by Person B, or Person B is who they say they are. According to a cast member, unlike the initial email the two hosts read from Person A, the catfish is the one who contacts the show for help, revealing themselves. There are also claims that both parties must agree to meet in person before filming (Van Neygen, pg 41). Knowing these details in advance makes it easier for producers to prop up one of those storylines and foreshadow future events in the episode. Here, the producer’s construct of the show is no different from that of House Hunters. But unlike House Hunters, Catfish takes a page from the documentary tradition to spice up its premise.
One of the most damning behind-the-scenes reveals of Catfish is that the producers do their own trial investigations of the catfish. That means that they already know ahead of time how the storyline of the episode will end and can plan accordingly. However, unlike the participants of House Hunters, Nev and Max are left unaware of the producer’s investigation. They have no idea what will happen next or what to expect when the two parties meet at the end of the episode (Van Neygen, 43). Thus, their reactions throughout the episode are genuine. In this way, Catfish is a show about two real people caught inside a fictional retelling of reality built around them. And that’s where documentary filmmaking comes in. A film crew surrounds Nev and Max, which can sometimes be seen within the show. However, in addition to the reality the crew captures, Max is equipped with his own camera that captures the subjective reality of the hosts (Van Neygen, 39). And it’s in the contrast between the crew’s cameras and Max’s subjective camera that the show generates a new form of hyperreality. One where hyperreality and subjective reality combine to generate drama rather than just focusing on a singular hyperreality.
With that in mind, Catfish fits cleanly into the first two bullet points of Kottman’s definition of a Shakespearean tragedy. Catfish does not exist to accomplish any social or material task. Instead, it focuses on Nev, Max, and the catfish victim’s subjective reactions to their investigations. However, the show does have a singular, conclusive takeaway: Be more careful when dating online. So, by that definition, the show, in its most standard sense, can’t be considered a Shakespearean tragedy. Because to be considered one would mean breaking the conceit of the entire show, thus breaking the fiction that the producers have planned for. It would mean introducing an element of pure chaos to break down the host’s subjective understanding of their journey. And such an episode exists, known solely by fans as…
THE FAT ASS KELLY PRICE EPISODE OF CATFISH
Season 3, episode 2 of Catfish is famous for a reason. I mean, how could it not be? Until then, the show had been a relatively formulaic show whose surprises were expected. You mean you weren’t actually dating Katy Perry or a hot blonde wayyyy out of your league from Topeka? Who would have thought? Sure, there were some genuinely confounding reveals at the end of each episode, but none were like Antwane and Tony. And I think how this episode plays with audience expectations is why it still lingers in the memory of most Gen Z and millennials today. But enough rambling, let’s cast this play.
Shakespearean Tragedies usually follow people with high status, like those of royal birth or leaders of men. These characters wield great influence in their circles. Keeping this in mind, it feels like fate that Antwane is the protagonist of this episode. Antwane is an influential figure in his community and is charisma incarnate. And therein comes his fatal flaw. Antwane is too full of himself to notice his influence over those around him. Because of this, he fails to realize how he could hurt those around him.
So, while Antwane is fun and welcoming, he is also egotistical and prideful. And this fits Shakespeare’s conceptualization of a tragic hero. Their inability to best this inward struggle between their virtues and flaws blinds them to the damage they are wreaking. In the wake of the play’s ending, nothing is left unscathed by their choices. And it’s within this internal conflict that the idea of Harmatia appears. Hamartia are the tragic errors the protagonist makes that ultimately damns them in the end. In his lecture on The Substance of Shakespearan Tragedy, AC Bradley further defines Harmartia. “In the circumstances where we see the Hero placed, his tragic trait, which is also his greatness, is fatal to him. To meet these circumstances something is required which a smaller man might have given, but which the Hero cannot give. He errs, by action or omission; and his error, joining with other causes, brings on him Ruin” (Bradley, pg 44). However, this play is buoyed by the Harmatia of not just one protagonist…but two.
While the episode is about Antwane, Nev is the character who pushes the story forward. Thus, Antwane and Nev seem to be co-protagonists of the narrative. With that in mind, Nev’s internal struggle is his too-trusting nature. It’s not entirely naivety, but it leads him to make decisions based on trust where he should have shown caution (Harmatia). He gets angry and frustrated when that trust is broken, which impacts his ability to stay impartial. That’s why Max is a perfect foil to Nev. Max sums up the main points of the play and subverts Nev’s optimism with pessimism. He is Nev’s advisor and confidant, like Mercutio is to Romeo and Horatio to Hamlet. Now, let’s switch gears and explore who our antagonist is in this play of ruin.
Carmen
The play Othello follows, “Othello, [a military general from North Africa,] and Desdemona, the white daughter of a Venetian nobleman, fall in love and marry in secret. Once Othello promotes Cassio to a prominent military role over Iago, [his standard-bearer], Iago feels slighted. He vows to destroy Othello and Desdemona’s happiness in revenge.”
In the halls of all of Shakespeare’s antagonists, Iago stands as one of his most malicious villains ever put to paper. His manipulation of the social and political dynamics around him has led scholars to label him as Machiavellian and others as a psychopath. His destruction of Othello is damn near surgical. However, when his scheme is revealed and he faces imprisonment for his crimes, Iago stands resolute. He provides no clear answer as to why he did what he did. It is this lack of disclosure that scholars and audience members are still debating what his true motives are.
Now, there’s a laundry list of fictional characters who take after Iago or, at the very least, attempt to capture what makes Iago such a compelling antagonist. However, Carmen might be the closest we will ever get to Iago in the flesh—or, dare I say, she’s his better in some ways. Despite being in a reality TV show, Carmen’s actions in this episode actively erode the show's fiction. Thus, she transcends the narrative of the show's authors—the producers. But what I find the most interesting about her is how she transcends reality TV’s consistent villainizing of black women and further defines herself as a unique antagonist.
Ain’t I A Woman?
In her essay, Is She Strong or Just a b!@*#?, Adria Y. Goldman explores how the anger of black women is portrayed in the reality show Bad Girls Club. Bad Girls Club follows “[a] group of rebellious women [who] are put in a house together in an experiment intended to moderate their behavior.” What follows is to be expected. The girls get into multiple violent altercations with each other. However, Goldman uses the show as a springboard to explore the numerous negative stereotypes surrounding the anger of black women.
One of the first major stereotypes levied against Black Women is the “Angry Black Woman,” which originates from the Sapphire archetype. “The “Sapphire” depiction made its television debut on Amos’ n’ Andy in 1951… [S]he was the antithesis to the good natured Aunt Jemima… “evil, treacherous, bitchy, stubborn and hateful…” (Goldman, pg 164). Here, the anger of the sapphire isn’t a reaction from outside stimuli but is made out to be an innate quality of Black Women. Goldman mentions, “...women use anger in response to stress, injustice, and others’ Irresponsibility. However, anger is often seen as the default emotion for black women. Given this expectation of anger, the reasons behind the emotion are not always considered.” (Goldman, pg 162). So Goldman sought to explore the first season of Bad Girls Club to explore how its three black female cast member utilized their anger. She broke down their reasons for the anger into the following categories: Inexplicable anger, Anger for protection, Anger from Disappointment, Anger from Disrespect, and Anger from Disloyalty and Disrespect.
From her study, Goldman discovered the following. “Although the majority of their anger was for a purpose, both [cast members] Leslie and Ty were critiqued negatively for their anger and they were sometimes labeled as “bitches.” Even when their rage was used in more positive ways, such as to protect others or to motivate others to change, their roommates rarely celebrated the women’s expressions of anger…[V]iewers who are not familiar with positive and more strategic uses of anger by black women may only perceive demonstrations of anger as negative.” (Goldman, pg 180). Considering how editing can skew the reality of a situation, how much of the context surrounding these outbursts of anger was edited out or skewed to make the black women involved the “villains” of the episode?
With this in mind, Carmen is an interesting twist on how black women have been portrayed in reality TV. Throughout the episode, she remains calm and smiling. She seemingly holds no malice. Sure, she has her dramatic reveal in the episode’s third act, but even that lacks the explosion of anger that one would expect of her. Thus, she breaks out of the simulacrum of a Saphire or an Angry Black Woman and, in doing so, can exist within this episode as a person and not a stereotype.
It’s Carmen’s personhood and the fact that she isn’t a psychopath or angry that makes her act of revenge that much more interesting. She’s seemingly a regular person who achieved one of the most damaging acts of revenge ever caught on screen. In Othello, Iago skews the appearance of a situation to make those around him believe his version of reality. Here, Carmen doesn’t need to do that because Reality TV is founded on the twisting of objective reality for entertainment. So, all Carmen had to do was continue to feed the showpieces of information that she controls and watch them construct a hyperreal narrative that gives Antwuane the hope that Tony is real. Thus, she gets Iago-level revenge with very little involvement. It’s genius. Now that the play has been cast, it’s time to watch this story unfold.
Act One
The first act of a Shakespearean Tragedy features three core elements: preexisting discontent, a prior decision that shapes the action, and standard exposition. The exposition reveals the setting and sets the stage for what’s to come. Oddly enough, Shakespeare rarely introduces his tragic hero at this stage. Instead, he allows other characters to set the stage for the hero’s appearance. This breeds curiosity and anticipation in the audience, drawing them into the story being presented (Bradley, 59-62).
Catfish follows this format. The show usually begins with Max and Nev reading a “letter” from the person being catfished. They comment on the letter and its sender before traveling to meet them. However, in this episode, instead of the person being catfished sending a letter, Carmen sends the letter on behalf of her cousin Antwane.
Carmen describes Antwane as a lovable guy who can easily be fooled. We see this in how he met Tony on a phone chat line and fell in love with him without ever seeing his face. When Carmen brings up her concerns about Tony, Antwane says, “You’re a hater; get out of my business.” And even, though Carmen only wants what’s best for her cousin, Antwane’s ego and prideful nature shine through in her dismissal (Harmatia).
Like Carmen, Iago opens the play by questioning Othello’s choices. He pushes back against Othello, making Cassio his right-hand man during a conversation with Rodrigo, one of Desdemona’s rejected suitors:
Carmen then appeals to Nev and Max’s sensibilities to get them to help Antwane in the same way Iago uses Rodrigo’s love of Desdemona to get him to rile up the racial prejudices her father has against Othello.
By doing so, Desdemona’s father attempts to punish Othello in Iago’s stead, much like Catfish will inadvertently punish Antwane in Carmen’s stead. Moreover, this act ends with Nev and Max noting how much they like Carmen and trust her judgment. Their trust in her and the narrative being created around said trust play right into her hands. Iago notes at the end of Act One:
During this act, Iago makes it clear that he hates Othello for choosing Cassio to be his lieutenant over him. But at this point in the narrative it’s unclear why Carmen wants revenge. The preexisting discontent and a prior decision that shape Carmen’s actions are hinted at. However, they are revealed in full in the third act, so I will hold off exploring them.
Act Two
In act two, the hero pursues their initial goal and achieves it. It also introduces inciting forces, an incident that introduces the conflict and sets the play’s rising action in motion. Bradley contends that there are two sides to the conflict. Side A and Side B. “...first A seeming to win some ground, and then the counter-action of B being shown. And since we always more or less decidedly prefer A to B or B to A, the result of this oscillating movement is a constant alternation of hope and fear, or rather of a mixed state predominantly hopeful and a mixed state predominantly apprehensive” (Bradley, pg 68). In this case, Side A is Nev and Antwane, and Side B is steadily revealed to be Carmen.
Here, Carmen’s control over her fake persona, Tony, allows her to shape the hyperreality the show presents to Antwane, Nev, and Max. She’s the one who shows Nev and Max how the phone chatlines work. You call in, and whoever is on the other side will message you. She even goes as far as to show Nev and Max how to change her voice to make herself more appealing. Moreover, Antwane can’t call Tony; only Tony can call him. By denying Antwane, Antwane’s affections for Tony grow. Soon, he begins to spin a narrative about Tony and what he looks like based on details Carmen feeds him. Moreover, the phone numbers Nev and Max use for the research send them down a rabbit hole of potential leads in the case. None of these leads to Carmen herself. So she can continue to be a source of strength to her cousin and “aid” in the investigation, all the while leading them to an inevitable dead end.
But it’s not as if she didn’t give her cousin a chance to redeem himself. During Nev and Max’s meeting with Antwane, she subtly gives Antwane multiple chances to distrust Tony. But Antwane doubles down, incidentally leaning into his Harmatia. Antwane agrees with Max that Carmen is his best friend. Yet he admits he trusts Tony, a man he has never met, over Carmen. By watching Carmen’s face and reactions throughout this act, you can see how pleased she is by these developments. Now, she has probable cause to take more active steps to ensure her cousin’s downfall.
Similarly, in Othello, Iago begins to warp reality and create false narratives to manipulate those around him further. When Desdemona arrives in Cyprus days before Othello himself, Cassio later takes her hand and kisses her cheek. Iago uses the two’s platonic fondness for each other to present a narrative to Rodrigo that they are secretly having an affair.
After convincing Cassio to have a drink and manipulating Rodrigo into fighting with him, a drunk Cassio ends up stabbing Montano, a fellow soldier. In response, Othello strips him of his lieutenant title. Iago then advises Cassio to appeal to Desdemona, as she may convince Othello to reinstate him. From there, Iago plots to have Emilia, his wife, and Desdemona’s maidservant, advocate for Cassio to Desdemona.
As mentioned, Iago actively has to work to twist reality to suit the narratives he presents to others. In Carmen’s case, the show needs to create a narrative arc around the investigation, which gives her the power to create her own. She feeds Nev and Max information, and they run with it. Moreover, the reality that Carmen is warping is further substantiated by Nev’s fatal flaw and Harmatia: his continued optimism that Tony could be real. Nev gets Antwane’s hopes up. Thus Nev ultimately sets up Antwane’s eventual downfall at Carmen’s hands to be even more devastating than thought possible.
Act Three
Act Three is the play’s midpoint, where there is a major reversal of fortune for the hero at the hands of the antagonist. While the antagonist causes it, this fortune reversal results from the protagonist’s fatal flaw and continued Hamartia.
After the bombastic reveal of Carmen’s ruse, the producers are no longer in charge of the shoot. This can be seen by the number of cameras racing around to get coverage of all the major players. The producers are also on camera, no longer able to stand and control the narrative from behind the scenes. There’s no way to edit around this reveal or twist it to favor what they want to portray. Carmen has essentially broken the show’s hyperreality by reintroducing objective reality to its fiction. Thus, all that’s left is a mad scramble for power between them and Carmen, and Carmen is the clear winner.
Carmen’s actions here are incredibly extreme, as this moment is the show’s most iconic moment. But when looked at within the context of Misogynoir, “the combined force of anti-black racism and misogyny directed towards black women,” the reasoning behind Carmen’s revenge becomes clear and even understandable. In a speech Malcolm X gave in 1962, he relays the following. “The most disrespected person in America, is the black woman. The most unprotected person in America is the black woman. The most neglected person in America, is the black woman.” Black women receive so much unnecessary disrespect and hatred in our world. While the speech is a call out to black people to rationalize how much of our own internalized self-hatred and inability to chart upward mobility comes from white oppression, it’s this last sentiment that I find the most interesting.
Malcolm continues by saying, “[w]e believe that if the white man, will do whatever is necessary, to see that his woman get respect and protection, then you and I will never be recognized as men. Until we stand up like men and pays the same penalty over the head of anyone, who puts his filthy hands out, to put it in a direction of our women.” Here, he calls for awareness from within the black community of how black women are treated. One that should be a given. But to this day, it is often black men who continue to marginalize black women, which the term Misogynoir directly speaks to.
The Wikipedia article on the term mentions, “[i]n a foreword to an edition of Michele Wallace’s book “Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman,” Jamilah Lemieux writes that Misogynoir “can come even from those who are black, who were raised by black women and profess to value black people.” Carmen notes that Antwane “...said I was a fat hungry Kelly Price [a black R&B and gospel singer], and every little thing that humiliates somebody he has said to me. The best way I knew how to get him back was that I knew he would be on the chat line. The joke was always on me, so now the joke is on him.” If you were facing immense misogynistic racism out in the world, being racially humiliated by someone you respect would be deeply hurtful. So Carmen turned the tables, and now Antwane gets to experience the same hurt at the same magnitude she felt.
In Act 3, Iago also sets his plan in motion. When Cassio pleads his case to Desdemona, he has Othello watch him exit Desdemona’s chambers. That way, he can plant a seed of doubt in Othello’s mind that Desdemona might be having an affair with Cassio. It’s a seed brought to bloom when she continues advocating for Cassio to be reinstated. Iago then continues to twist Othello’s mind against Cassio and his wife by implying their affair. After Iago exits, Othello contemplates the humiliation of Desdemona’s unfaithfulness and how the mere idea is enough for him to doubt his self-worth and blackness.
The final nail in the coffin is Iago gaining possession of a special embroidered handkerchief that Othello gave Desdemona and planting it in Cassio’s room. Iago later lies about Cassio calling out to Desdemona in his sleep and seeing him use the handkerchief to wipe his beard, enraging Othello. In the face of mounting evidence, Othello makes Iago his new lieutenant and orders him to kill Cassio as he confronts Desdemona. His jealousy rages when she cannot produce the handkerchief, and he vows revenge against Desdemona and Cassio.
Bradley makes this interesting note regarding Iago’s plotting in Act Three. “Othello resembles King Lear in having a hero more acted upon than acting, or rather a hero driven to act by being acted upon. But then, if Iago is taken as the leading figure, the usual mode of construction is plainly abandoned, for a descending movement will nowhere follow a crisis. Iago’s cause advances, at first slowly and quietly, then rapidly, but it does nothing but advance until the catastrophe swallows his dupe and him together. And this way of regarding the action does positive violence.” (Bradley, pg 71-72). Like Carmen, Iago wins massively in this act, but it won’t be long before his ambition consumes him and thwarts his plans.
Act Four
In Act Four, the hero is banished, and the focus is on the supporting cast. Bradley notes, “[t]he effect [banishing the hero] is to make us feel a sudden and tragic change in the direction of the movement, which, after ascending more or less gradually, now turns sharply downward” (Bradley, pg 74). So it’s no wonder that in this Act, Antwane is off-screen as Nev and Max talk to Carmen one-on-one.
While Nev takes Antwane’s place as the protagonist in this act, he soon grows unreliable as his anger towards Carmen clouds his judgment. His anger results from his trusting nature, his hamartia, being taken advantage of. Thus, their conversation gets so heated that the producers take Nev and Max outside and tell them they are sabotaging their show. They must “get back in there and hear her side of the story.” While Nev apologizes and guides the conversation, some of the most interesting insight comes from Max’s reaction to Carmen’s actions.
Bradley notes the following: “Either at this point, or in the scene of the counter-stroke which precedes it, we sometimes find a peculiar effect. We are reminded of the state of affairs in which the conflict began” (Bradley, pg 75). Max is the one who recontextualizes what Carmen’s done in the grander scheme of things. Nev asks Carmen if she considers herself a compulsive liar, and Carmen agrees. She notes that the greatest liars work in the biggest companies. But Max interjects by stating that she came on the show because she wanted to tell everyone that she’s more intelligent than the world gives her credit for being. Yet, the thing she wants to promote and be known for is this hostile act of revenge.
Forced to look back on her actions, Carmen mentions that her anger and pain towards Antwane caused her to create another version of herself to cope. She ultimately realizes that love is at the heart of her rage. Her best friend hurt her deeply, and she hurt him back just as deeply, if not more. But in trying to rectify the hurt, she lost what she cared about most: her friendship with her cousin. This act marks the beginning of the tragic force. Following closely after the crisis, this incident intensifies the tragic hero's downfall and sets in motion the falling action or denouement of the play. For a brief moment, it appears the protagonist will escape their tragic downfall. Will Antwane be able to forgive Carmen for her transgressions and move forward?
In Othello, Othello doesn’t take a leave of absence like some of the protagonists of Shakespeare’s other tragedies, most notably Romeo and Hamlet. However, he does take leave of his senses as jealousy begins to cloud his vision. Meanwhile, Iago continues to warp reality to make it look like the affair between Cassio and Desdemona is real. He has Cassio talk about his relationship with Bianca, a sex worker, as Othello hides in the bushes, thinking they’re talking about Desdemona. When Bianca enters, she throws Desdemona’s handkerchief at Cassio. She then angrily accuses him of gifting her another woman’s love token.
Using the reappearance of the handkerchief as evidence of the affair, Othello begins to plan Desdemona’s death, and Iago plots Cassio’s. Lodovico, a relative of Desdemona’s father, later arrives with a message from the duke and tells Othello he is to return to Venice with orders to leave Cassio as his replacement in Cyprus. Desdemona enters and mentions the rift between Othello and Cassio. It’s a rift she wishes to mend as she cares for Cassio platonically. But Othello is enraged by words and hits her, damaging his relationship with Lodovico and his reputation.
In this act, Max reminds Carmen of the effect her actions had on Antwane. Similarly, Lodovico recontextualizes Othello’s descent by reminding the audience of who he was at the start of the play. However, unlike Carmen, who is forced to reflect on her actions, Iago doesn’t crack in this act and continues down his path of ruin.
Act Five
In Act Five, the hero returns to the forefront of the narrative only to face catastrophe on arrival.
In the aftermath of Carmen’s actions, Antwane is no longer optimistic. He’s closed himself off from others and love. The innocent person he was previously has metaphorically died. While he is no longer naive regarding love, he is still ruled by his tragic flaw: his ego. He is not repentant of his actions against Carmen at all. By that same metric, the callous Carmen has become softer and regretful in the face of her actions. It’s such a compelling reversal of their characters. Moreover, the clear messaging of the show, which is to be more careful while online dating, has become dubious due to Carmen’s actions. There’s no exact conclusion one can draw from these events. In this state of ambiguity, Catfish gains the final bullet point in Kottman’s understanding of Shakespearean Tragedies. It does not conclude with a clear “point” or conclusion attributed to the larger context of the world these plays inhabit.
In Othello’s final act, Iago convinces Rodrigo to try to kill Cassio, only for him to show up and save Cassio by killing Rodrigo. Meanwhile, Othello smothers Desdemona, only for Emilia to reveal Iago’s ruse. Unlike Antwane, Othello does rationalize his faults in his final moments.
In his grief, Othello kills himself as Iago is imprisoned and will be executed for his actions. Unlike Carmen, he is unrepentant and refuses to reveal why he wants revenge on Othello. He merely looks on at his destruction as he awaits execution. Here is where Shakespeare’s idea of Tragic Waste comes in. Nobody wins in a Shakespearean tragedy, neither hero nor villain. There’s no justice.
Conclusion
There is a reason why this episode has lingered with us so long after its initial release. It’s because, for the first time, the audience was drawn into the show’s reality. We were no longer passive observers of drama. Our eyeballs watching the episode facilitated Carmen’s revenge. And that breakdown of reality TV’s reality and encroachment on our objective reality sends chills down my spine. It’s an episode of television so epic that the only comparison I could make was Shakespeare. A part of that was wishful thinking and assumptions on my part, but now, after reaching this point, I’ve shocked myself. Because Shakespeare was right. All the world’s a stage, and we are the players. And who knows, maybe you’ll take the starring role next.