On the other side of this discussion is something I have been thinking about a lot over the last couple of years: the explosion of real people/real situations, manufactured entertainment. Not just the Guinness Book of Records stuff which can be spectacular and definitely dangerous, and therefore exciting (to some, not me) but all of the real people shows like Oprah, and her kind, and also the "Most Wanted" shows where real situations are reenacted and viewers can ring up with information.

But more interestingly, the type of situation which is set up specifically for a tv programme. In Oz there was a programme called the House From Hell. A group of young people were offered the chance to make $5000 if they could manage to live in a share house with each other for a few weeks. The person who devised this idea tried to select a group of unrelated individuals who would clash with each other so that it would be good television viewing (in his opinion) but the people were getting on all right together so he started devising some pretty crass and provocative events and situations for them to endure. The majority of them managed to stick it out to the end and get their money.

The money bribe reminded me of the film They Shoot HOrses Don't They, about dance competitions in the time of an economic depression where people were so desperate for money they would do just about anything to get it.

What really interested me in this topic, though, is a sci-fi book I read about 20 years ago called The Continuous Katherine Mortenhoe, but someone called Compton. A woman is dying of some sort of terrible disease and agrees to have her last few weeks of life filmend, 24 hours a day, so that it can be broadcast live. Does it remind you a lot of the film Truman?

It's scary, I think, that tv and film producers have arrived at the point where they think that fiction is not as interesting as real life (or should I say "real" life?) so they have started manufacturing their version of reality.

Food for thought. I think it would make a very interesting sociological study.

Helen