TVSquad

Floris Vermeir wrote an interesting piece for Blogcritics about what might happen if reality TV ever gets out of hand. In a nutshell, she envisions a Truman Show kind of experiment where the "star" of the program is unaware they're being filmed and manipulated. Oddly enough, she never cites The Truman Show, even though it illustrates more or less exactly what she's talking about. She writes even further to explain how this would be considered a kind of slavery, and, we can assume, not a very good idea.

I don't see such a show ever seeing the light of day, at least not on television. I think the real question to ask is: If such a show existed, would people watch it? I think they would, and it's because despite having the word "reality" affixed to these programs, they're still very much fiction. To paraphrase an English professor from Todd Solondz's movie Storytelling, "Once you start writing, it all becomes fiction."  No matter what medium you work in, and no matter how much you try to use "real" people or base it on true events, the end result will be tainted by your own subjectivity. Taping someone without their permission would be inexcusable, but placing a television barrier between "actor" and audience creates fiction, and it creates detachment. If you're wondering what I'm talking about, just watch the evening news.