Back to reality

Most television programs that claim to depict some type of reality — an evening newscast, for example, or an emergency room documentary — should not be held morallly responsible for the events that they portray. For instance, the cameraman who films the bombing of a city is not responsible for the deaths that result. He is the observer rather than the creator of that unfortunate situation.

Reality-based shows, on the other hand, actually create the situations that they document. The producers of such shows, therefore, can and should be held morally responsible for their shows' negative consequences. It is increasingly important that producers recognize this responsibility since reality-based shows have the potential to create huge problems for their participants in the future.

The producers of shows that create and then document 'real' situations set themselves up for trouble by adopting a "Jurassic Park" mentality. In other words, they think they've covered all the bases; they think they can predict almost every possible outcome of the controlled realities they create. However, they fail to take into account the unpredictability of the human beings that are a part of those realities.

We've already had a taste of the results that this kind of thinking can produce. Background checks on Rick Rockwell of Fox's "Who Wants to Marry a Multi-millionaire" failed to turn up his alleged history of domestic violence. A contestant on CBS's "Big Brother" unexpectedly sabotaged one of the show's "challenges." And one of the couples featured on Fox's "Temptation Island" turned out to have a child — a surprise to the producers, who designed their selection process to filter out couples with children.

Luckily, none of these incidents irreparably harmed anyone. Rockwell's past was revealed in time for his new wife to annul the marriage; the couple with the child was forced to leave "Temptation Island." Such slip-ups simply go to show what the producers of reality-based programs are up against when they try to control and predict the actions of their participants on and off screen.

However, the producers of the "Jenny Jones Show" learned the hard way that the unpredictability of human behavior can be more than just an inconvenience for shows that create and document real situations. In 1995, the show produced an episode on "secret crushes" in which one guest, Jonathan Schmitz, was surprised and embarrassed to learn that his admirer was a gay man. Days after taping the show, Schmitz shot his admirer, Scott Amedure, to death. Legally, the show was forced to take some responsibility for the killing, paying $25 million in damages to Amedure's family.

It may seem unfair to blame the "Jenny Jones Show" for Scott Amedure's death. After all, the show's producers could hardly have predicted that their "secret crush" episode — run-of-the-mill for daytime talk — would have such an effect on Schmitz. Similarly, perhaps we shouldn't blame producers for any problems that human unpredictability may cause in relation to reality-based shows. For example, had that couple broken up on "Temptation Island," the producers couldn't be blamed for the harm this would cause their child. They couldn't have predicted that a couple would lie about having a child on legally-binding documents.

But that's the point. They couldn't predict. So why did they try? Even if the producers of a reality-based show "couldn't have predicted" or "didn't directly cause" some future disastrous event, they will bear the responsibility for creating the context in which such an unexpected event was possible.

Reality-based shows thrive on documenting the responses of ordinary people to extreme situations. Unfortunately, extreme situations demand extreme actions, on and off the screen. The producers of reality-based shows need to realize that you can't put reality into a box and expect it to behave. If they fail to do so, we should hold them morally responsible for the consequences.

(Melissa Waage is a politics major from Johnson City, TN. She can be reached at mrwaage@princeton.edu)