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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 large metropolis and begin going to auditions. Then, to your utter pleasure, you’re forged on a actuality present.
When 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 — numerous them — and win prizes. Once the prize worth totals a specific amount, you’ve received. What have you ever received? Well … you’ll see.
This is an actual factor that occurred to Tomoaki Hamatsu, generally known as Nasubi: He was chosen by Toshio Tsuchiya, a Japanese actuality TV producer, to just do that on a nationally broadcast TV present. (If the story sounds acquainted, it’s as a result of it was the idea for a preferred “This American Life” episode.) If you’ll be able to consider it, Nasubi’s story will get weirder from there, and is now the topic of Clair Titley’s new documentary, “The Contestant” (accessible on Hulu).
The movie was made with the participation of a variety of figures concerned within the unique manufacturing, together with Tsuchiya and Nasubi. It retells the story utilizing interviews and a substantial amount 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 had been frequent, and it started working the identical 12 months that “The Truman Show,” with its oddly related plot, was launched.
“The Contestant” is value looking ahead to 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 during which questions of exploitation and ethics in actuality TV — surrounding every part from Bravo’s “Real Housewives” empire to “The Jinx” and a complete lot extra — have been, if in no way solved, a minimum of 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 primarily based on the machinations on a “Bachelor”-like present, is a revealing option to dig into these questions. It’s accessible 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 greater query is why we maintain watching it, and how much human qualms and compunctions we now have 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. But it doesn’t actually go there, preferring as a substitute to reassure us that Nasubi is OK.
But the movie’s failure to dig into its story additional doesn’t imply we will’t — and “The Contestant” is a superb place to begin for conversations like these. That’s why it’s value watching and excited about. Because it’s not only a loopy story: It’s an vital one in our media-saturated, always-on, can’t-look-away age.
