Series 7 (2001)

Reality bites, shoots, and stabs

[a review written 2003, when it was still possible to remember the first “reality” shows on radio, and when reality television still felt new ... posted here in honour of the implosion of the Kyle and Jackie O' radio show in Sydney, which reality (without the scare quotes) has recently caught up with]

Maybe eight years ago, when “reality” radio and television started to appear in Australia, my friends and I dismissed it out of hand. More the fool us. The idea that the deliberate creation of dysfunction, for audience tittilation, might be a growing movement — rather than a passing fad — seemed outlandish. Very little seems outlandish now, and some of the early shows, at least in memory, recall to mind a more innocent time. One of the enforced house-mates, a Sydney-based program once luridly announced, was “a lesbian from Newtown”. Well, golly. They must have had to search for a long time to find one of those.

Series 7, a note-perfect satire on reality television, was actually made before Survivor. Someone could see which way the wind was blowing. The self-seriousness of the narrator, the self-dramatisation of the contestants as they talk with the camera, and the complicity of the audience: it's all there, and thrown into sharp relief by the film's premise. In “The Contenders” — the movie presents as the seventh series, shown as a TV marathon — six people are given guns, and an enforced licence to kill each other. The surivivor gets to play the next round, and if they then make it through a third series, to win their freedom.

As sci-fi/satire it's scarcely a new idea, but the movie doesn't so much as gesture towards its predecessors; nor does it indulge in backstory, or spurious social history. The writers have the sense to play it straight. And as a complement to this approach, they've given the starring role to Brooke Smith. That shows such good taste. More than just the girl down the well in The Silence of the Lambs (1991), she was Sonya in Vanya on 42nd Street (1994), the standout actor in that coolest of films. Straightforward and unshowy, she really does look like the girl next door, and it makes her a cinch as Dawn, 33, massively pregnant, the unlikely reigning Contender. With ten kills in two tours, “she has been unstoppable”, and to make things interesting this series is returning her to her home town.

The new contestants are the faux-real cross-section beloved of television: a teenage girl, a chatty loser and father of three, a reclusive old fart, a middle-aged nurse, and a thirtyish artist “living with” terminal illness. No, really. You should hear the atmospheric music that plays in the background; and you absolutely should pay money to see the artist's wife.

Series 7 does have flaws and cop-outs, and they need to be acknowledged. The largest, sad to say, concerns Dawn: like the Jedi in Star Wars, she never has to kill anyone we've identified with. Her ruthlessness is acknowledged from the outset, and we witness some brutal action, but she's protected from anything that would alienate us by gun-jams, chances of timing, and other acts of the deity. It reflects a lack a rigour on the part of the film-makers, an unwillingness to risk the sympathetic nature of the protagonist. It's not clear why they bothered, as Dawn has a compelling excuse for her behaviour (she is eight months gone), a palpable sense of honour, and the weary survivor's pragmatism of Ripley, circa Alien³. It is alarmingly easy to identify with her, and if the writers had been willing to risk her offing a well-developed character, the film could have been taken to a whole new level. The choice of villain is likewise too cheap, and an even-handed contest might have made a stronger point about the human predicament within this “real” world.

Such concerns aside, Series 7 captures the style of editing, and the terribly watchable nature of these shows ... and the need to take a long hot shower after watching. It even takes a prurient interest in the sex-lives of the contestants, in particular the virginity, or otherwise, of 18-year-old Lindsay. Her complicity in the attention, and the posturing of her boyfriend, only add to the quease.

When we talked about the first reality programs, years ago, we worried about obvious things: that in the environment of these shows, things would be broken that could not be fixed; that sooner or later, someone was going to be raped, or badly hurt; that some already-damaged person might be destroyed. The genius of Series 7 is to see that this was never really the point. The literal horror is taken for granted, and it's sadly true that it doesn't revolt as much as it “should”: people are killed all through this program, but with the exception of a particular lethal beating, none of it makes you wince. But one winces every moment at the loss of shame, of self-respect, and of any kind of restraint, not just by the contenders, but by the relentless, sententious voice-over, and the public that it's co-opted to its perspective.

When Dawn's tiny niece embraces her, and declares her love, she turns to the camera to check for audience approval. It's a perfect picture of the corruption that the film attacks, and a better counter-argument to the libertarians could not be devised. Of course it matters; of course it's wrong; of course it should be stopped; and of course it's degenerate, and reflects badly on the lot of us. “We're just showing people what they want to see, per their democratic rights.” And what sainted, selfless heroes you are for doing so. Enough, already.

[Check the film and Brooke Smith on IMDb; there is a rather more negative review of the film on the NYT site.]