So think about this. It’s 1998. You wish to be a comic, and also you’re determined for work. You strike out for the massive metropolis and begin going to auditions. Then, to your utter pleasure, you’re forged on a actuality present.
While you present as much as set, although, issues get bizarre. You’re ordered to take away all of your clothes and also you’re handed a stack of clean postcards and a pen. The aim is to make use of them to enter journal contests — a number of them — and win prizes. As soon as the prize worth totals a specific amount, you’ve received. What have you ever received? Nicely … you’ll see.
It is a actual factor that occurred to Tomoaki Hamatsu, generally known as Nasubi: He was chosen by Toshio Tsuchiya, a Japanese actuality TV producer, to do exactly that on a nationally broadcast TV present. (If the story sounds acquainted, it’s as a result of it was the premise for a preferred “This American Life” episode.) In case you can consider it, Nasubi’s story will get weirder from there, and is now the topic of Clair Titley’s new documentary, “The Contestant” (out there on Hulu).
The movie was made with the participation of a variety of figures concerned within the authentic manufacturing, together with Tsuchiya and Nasubi. It retells the story utilizing interviews and quite a lot of footage from the precise present, which underlines how revolutionary it was. Nasubi’s life contained in the room was broadcast earlier than voyeuristic webcams have been frequent, and it started working the identical 12 months that “The Truman Present,” with its oddly related plot, was launched.
“The Contestant” is value awaiting the strangeness of the story. I discovered it curiously underdeveloped as a documentary, although. It’s been greater than 25 years since Nasubi’s ordeal, years by which questions of exploitation and ethics in actuality TV — surrounding every part from Bravo’s “Actual Housewives” empire to “The Jinx” and an entire lot extra — have been, if in no way solved, no less than explored at size, relitigated each time information surfaces in regards to the manipulation of topics or the reality behind the scenes. (“UnReal,” a scripted drama based mostly on the machinations on a “Bachelor”-like present, is a revealing strategy to dig into these questions. It’s out there on most main platforms.)
The massive query isn’t why arguably unscrupulous actuality TV retains getting made, as a result of we all know the reply. The larger query is why we preserve watching it, and what sort of human qualms and compunctions we have now to push apart to indulge. “The Contestant” has at its fingertips a wealthy textual content for exploring our present actuality panorama, to not point out our fascination with social media meltdowns. However it doesn’t actually go there, preferring as an alternative to reassure us that Nasubi is OK.
However the movie’s failure to dig into its story additional doesn’t imply we will’t — and “The Contestant” is a good place to begin for conversations like these. That’s why it’s value watching and desirous about. As a result of it’s not only a loopy story: It’s an necessary one in our media-saturated, always-on, can’t-look-away age.
