Visual Pop Culture: Farming Reality TV

         The Majority of American society has evolved to the point where farming has become oblivious to them. The food they consume simply comes from the store they bought it from and the farmers that actually initiate the produce have long been forgotten. However, the pop culture television genre, known as reality TV, is making its audience familiar with farming and what efforts are involved with this lifestyle and occupation.  

         Viewers can see the amount of effort one must put out to generate a product by watching The Discovery Channel's Alaska: The Last Frontier, This piece of pop culture contains aspects one might view of a Homesteader's life in the late 1800's. The Kitcher family's daily happenings of living off the land consist of raising chickens for their meat and eggs, raising cattle for its beef, and maintaining a garden to grow  food to eat.

One of the major issues that this family faces from living in Alaska is the element. They need to make sure they produce enough food to live through the long winter months while also protecting their garden and livestock from the elements. In one episode, a family members is required to cut down trees to mill in order to accomplish the task of building a large chicken coop to “maintain their crucial food source”. Besides where to house the chickens, they are also faced with issues of raising chickens. The family is tasked later in the season with needing to figure out which chicken is the oldest as it is most likely the chicken eating the eggs. From this plot the audience learns why a chicken would eat their own eggs, what the physical signs of an aging chicken are, and what is involved with killing a chicken, including emotionally. Other episodes the viewers can watch along as the family participates in is driving their cattle to the different pastures, harvesting their hay crop, and dealing with their bees.

 While reality shows can produce annoying celebrities and have ridiculous plots, Alaska: The Last Frontier can be considered to be a valuable contribution to pop culture because it can be used as a learning opportunity for the people to see what life as a farmer can be like while also showing the efforts involved with being a homesteader.

 Works Cited:

Bulgaria.indymedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Mar. 2015.             <http://bulgaria.indymedia.org/usermedia/image/7/reality-tv.gif>.

"Eve's Cannibal Hen | Alaska: The Last Frontier." YouTube. YouTube, 22 Oct. 2012. Web. 29 Mar. 2015. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RAUeoZeeCU>.

Wikipedia. Np., n.d. Web. 29 Mar. 2015. <http://en.wikipedia/wiki/Alaska:_The_Last_Frontier>.