Save this article to read it later.
Find this story in your accountsSaved for Latersection.
Nathan Fieldermesses with people.
But for achieve his ends, Fielder almost inevitably deceives his subjects.
Fielder stages a mind-bogglingly detailed recreation of all the ways this interaction could go.
They game out strategies for minor interruptions and emotional detours.
They plan where to sit, what drinks to order.
That scale is spectacular, and its also functional.
It is meant to disorient the viewer, and itworks.
That disorientation is more than a little horrifying.
But its obvious even from that first, comparatively benign episode with the bar-trivia disclosure.
But can they really say no?
They can control their own behavior, but they have no say in how that behavior is eventually edited.
Even if they think theyre playing along as Fielders bar-trivia man does the process seems destined to betray them.
In another rehearsal, the participant simply leaves, apparently opting out of the process.
ButThe Rehearsaluses all his earlier footage anyhow.
But they are always gifts for Fielder, first and foremost.
He is a puppet master whose seeming guilelessness invites people to tie up their own strings.
It is solipsism disguised as its opposite.
How could that not be repellent?
Everything Fielder does is an unadorned version of how all reality TV works.
Were uncomfortable because we can see the mechanics of it, but nothing is actually different.
People consent to play along with a production, often built as a social experiment for their possible gain.
Participants ofLove Is Blinddont know how theyll be edited.
People onThe Circlesign up knowing theyll be manipulated.
Does that make the manipulation okay?
And once you strip it all down, isntThe Rehearsaldoing what all television does?
Some of its most discomfiting elements involve that rehearsal for Angela, who wants to rehearse motherhood.
The cost is in emotional distress, and that cost is high.
He rotates it, hiding the sticker from view.
The pepper was not real, but the shift between reality and rehearsal is so remarkably small.
Fielders participants are ostensibly real people with real problems.
Most important, itfeelstrue.
It is true enough that as the rehearsals play out, as more and more twists and M.C.
Escheresque turns are introduced into the rehearsal process, your body registers them as true and responds accordingly.
You cannot help but want to cringe because its so byzantine and so simultaneously emotionally naked.
Like it or not, that sensation of bodily distress is the feeling of Fielders rehearsals succeeding.
