If you are you one of those many hundreds of thousands who have sat hopelessly riveted through two seasons of Survivor, you may wonder just how seriously we should take it all. After all, Reality TV is just another genre of game show, isn't it? Of course a million U.S. dollars is on the line in Survivor, and so it should come as no surprise that unhappy participants might turn to the law to vent their frustrations.

Stacey claimed that the show violated a fairly obscure law, a federal statute that was introduced after the television game show scandals of the 1950s (see the movie "Quiz Show" for an entertaining look at this issue). Congressional hearings were held into these shenanigans, when it was discovered that the contestants were given the answers to questions before they were asked! More specifically, Stillman claimed that the producer affected the outcome of the show.

And by the way, did we mention that Ms Stillman is a lawyer?

You may be surprised to know that U.S. lawyers do not seem to be on their colleague's side in this case. Why? Perhaps they think it will only add fuel to the public's ongoing disgust with lawyers (at least in the U.S.).

It's ironic that the public believes that the so-called Reality TV shows reflect reality! For heaven's sake, to state the obvious, they are being filmed for television! So why should anyone, viewer or participant, complain that there are fictions woven into the fabric of the show?

From a legal viewpoint, the answer is not straightforward. If a television producer claims that a particular aspect of a show is true, then in fact it must be. But viewers are not expected to believe that the inhabitants of an island, or the Australian outback in the second series, are acting naturally. That's a little difficult when there are dozens of cameras trained on your every action.

But it's a lot different when the producers claim that the vote that concludes each program is absolutely above board. And if that were not so, would you really be interested in who won the million dollars? Of course not. So that is the contract the producer makes with the participants and the viewers.

Let’s say that Stacey is sincere in her belief (not ours) that she was defrauded by the producer of the show. Why shouldn’t she be permitted to take legal action against the program? As we said, a lot of money was at stake, and whatever humiliation she may have suffered was in front of tens of millions of viewers.

But there are disturbing aspects to this. The law, or at least the ideal of the law that supports our institutions, is there to be applied with a modicum of (yes) reality. Wasn’t it clear in the first series of Survivor that avarice, contempt, corruption of the system and an ability to manipulate others would be rewarded? The ultimate winner, Rich, was an arch manipulator. He schemed his way to a cool million, and so he should have, because he understood precisely what the show was all about.

We get our information about the law in large parts through popular culture. And what is the clear message that comes through in some of these Reality TV shows? That you have to be corrupt, bend the law and manipulate your way to the top if you want to succeed. So it seems somewhat ironic that one of the contestants is claiming that she was defrauded – does it occur to anyone that in large degree these Reality TV shows are intended to elevate deception to an art? Fine, that’s what we want to watch, but let’s not take the "rules" seriously, as though we actually believed Reality TV was real? When you get run down by a car, that’s real – and that’s why you should be able to sue whoever is reasonably responsible for the losses that flow from the accident.

There you have it, the result of a dislocation in our sense that has us believing the rule of law is applicable to each and every circumstance of our lives. Call it Reality TV if you like, but we seem to have forgotten just one thing – it’s television entertainment, not the real world!

By Geoffrey Winn
Creative Director
www.law4u.com.au

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