`Reality TV' is founded on P T Barnum's famous dictum `Nobody went broke underestimating public taste.' `Series 7 The Contenders' simply takes the idea to its extreme a program where contestants hunt each other down, not in the wild, but in suburbia, the survivor being declared the winner (oddly, the only prize seems to be survival).
Obviously this is satire, and there are some genuinely funny moments, such as the parents of a teenage contestant urging their daughter on, as, armed with a rifle, she attempts to take care of an elderly opponent on a golf course. When the same girl, taking the gun into a shopping mall, is challenged by a security man, she says `its all right, I'm from The Contenders' and he lets her pass. The two main characters, Dawn (Brooke Smith) the champion from the last series and Jeffery (Glenn Fitzgerald), an opponent and former boyfriend, are sympathetically drawn. Dawn is pretty aggressive, but also eight months pregnant, and filled with emotion on returning to her home town. Jeffery, an artist, is suffering from testicular cancer, and though cared for by his devoted wife, wants to die. Needless to say, it becomes pretty hard for Dawn to pull the trigger on Jeffery when she gets the chance. The other contestants are not so sympathetically drawn, but they are by no means monsters, even if Connie the ER nurse with the deadly needle, goes to confession before stepping out to kill someone.
I formed the distinct impression that the contestants were not actually volunteers, being selected at random from something like the list of social security numbers. If that were the case, and I was selected, my first priority would be to wipe out the producers, not my fellow contestants. The Gladiators of ancient Rome were not volunteers of course, and perhaps that's the parallel the producers of the film seek to draw, or perhaps with the military draft for Vietnam.
Occasionally, reality TV makes good television, as in the case of the Australian `RPA' about the day to day workings of a large Sydney hospital. But the contrived ones, like `Survivor', `Boot Camp' and even the quiz show `The Weakest Link' depend on (vicarious) fear and humilation, not to mention voyeurism for their entertainment value. Freak shows such as `Springer' add loathing to the mix.
The director here (Daniel Minehan) does a good job of demonstrating just how nasty the premises are behind these sorts of shows but don't really sheet home the blame. I don't mind seeing a few of the high and mighty humiliated in public but I do object to ordinary mostly decent people being chewed up for entertainment purposes. Dawn and Jeffery deserve our sympathy, not our revulsion, a point the film makes reasonably well. It also illustrates that P T Barnum's dictum has lost none of its force.
