that you don t often hear on tv. - the docu-series is born. - the real world brought viewers in that were not represented on television. - white women benefited for the civil rights movement more than black people. look it up. - then i m the lucky one. - you are. - kevin powell is an activist. kevin powell fights for black rights and black power. and so to have him on that first season, talking about those issues, right at the time that the rodney king situation was going on, you couldn t have asked for a better setup. - [woman] why do you get so close? - will you listen? black people are emotional. - and kevin powell is kind of giving it straight to people, with no chaser. he s telling em the truth. truth that a lot of people weren t ready for. - and let me tell you something about you. there was a lot going on during my season of the real world . i ve made a decision that i m going to terminate the pregnancy. i was very open about discussing having an abortion on television. if p
and transparent way, then absolutely unscripted tv is the perfect platform for it because that s what people are watching. - [announcer] extra, extra, here s the latest. - in 2004, we had college hill from bet, which was in a way, a bit of a remix to the real world , but this time it focused on black students. - almost two decades ago, there were no follow docs that featured an all black cast. it gave us this experience inside an hbcu. - if y all was gonna pledge with a sorority, you guys- - if i were to do it, i would pledge delta, just because it s like, it s sisterhood. (sorority stepping) - admissions went up by 50%. the outcome is today, more doctors, more black lawyers, more black people in the workforce, because people who obviously would not have applied to college before, applied to it after they saw it on television. (mysterious music)
- i m really glad i got to know pedro zamora. i m grateful that his rich and fulfilling work is still remembered today. and i hope you enjoy and learn from pedro s life of compassion and fearlessness. - you have to really credit the real world with sort of helping the acceptance of the lgbt community because there weren t many portrayals of gay people, period, you know, on television at that point. - her name is marla. i m seeing a woman. - in the 90s, gay characters were always secondary or third. there was never a gay character that was the lead of a show. - so you wanna go look at apartments tomorrow? - great idea! - okay. - ellen degeneres the comedian was about to come out as a lesbian. - look, murphy. - [laughs] - i m on the cover of time. - and she does it on time magazine.
with writers and actors would just be too expensive for them. - the real world, i guess that s what this was supposed to be. - so we essentially applied all the drama rules to documentary to get our what we called at that time a docusoap. - this is the true story. - true story. - of seven strangers. - it was kind of this social experiment to kind of watch what happens when you put these strangers together in a house. you know, when people stop being polite and start getting real. [beeper beeping] - do you sell drugs? why do you have a beeper? [laughter] - you hadn t seen anything like that on television. that kind of open, honest discussion of race. - i could try as much as i can to try to deal with you, but ignorance is ignorance, stupidity is stupidity, and that s it. black, white, green, purple, blue, whatever. - the real world becomes this kind of, you know, big-bang moment for reality tv, where the idea is that, oh, my god, all we have to do is just take cameras and put the