Carolina Acosta-Alzuru let no one off the hook during the Intercultural Affairs department’s R.E.A.L Talk series.

Acosta-Alzuru, an associate professor in Grady College, exposed the stereotypes that exist in reality TV.

“We’re all trapped in a web of stereotypes,” she said.

She used Trishelle from MTV’s The Real World as an example of a stereotypical sorority girl.

“You don’t have to go to reality TV to find stereotypes. The first day of class you looked around and you started immediately classifying.”

Acosta-Alzuru, who is of Venezuelan heritage, said she experienced the dangers of stereotyping in her own classroom.

“People think, oh isn’t that the country with pretty women?” she said.

Acosta-Alzuru associated the consumption of reality TV with signing a contract. She said by watching a show, viewers express to networks a belief that what they watch is “sort of real.”

Stereotypes, she said, are a part of a stock of shared meaning that allows people to communicate.

Jillian Martin, a freshman from Newnan, said, “Producers are not fond of real people, but they’re fond of real characters.”

During the discussion, Acosta-Alzuru turned the tables on the audience. “Do you think we are all equally represented in US television?” she said.