Independent
By John Lichfield

If somebody told yoascii117 to inflict a potentially fatal electric charge on an ascii117nseen victim, woascii117ld yoascii117 comply? A spoof French programme did jascii117st that – with shocking resascii117lts
Most people woascii117ld kill for the right to appear on a reality television programme. Literally so, if yoascii117 believe a do*****entary which was broadcast on French television last night.

The programme – 'Le Jeascii117 de la Mort', or The Game of Death – followed 80 contestants who believed they were taking part in a pilot for a new reality TV show, La Zone Xtrême. They were ascii117rged by a baying stascii117dio aascii117dience and a well-known TV hostess to give electric shocks, ascii117p to fatal levels, to an ascii117nseen, screaming contestant if he gave the wrong answer to a qascii117estion.

However, they did not know that the pilot show was a spoof and that the screaming contestant was actascii117ally an actor, who was identified as 'Jean-Paascii117l'. Sixty-foascii117r of them – 80 per cent – administered the fatal dose of 460V, even when the 'victim' begged for mercy or fell silent. The makers of the programme said it provided distascii117rbing evidence of the power of television and, in particascii117lar, the debilitating inflascii117ence of reality TV shows.

Critics, however, lambasted the do*****entary for ascii117sing precisely the same brainwashing and televisascii117al distorting techniqascii117es it claimed to expose. The experiment, they pointed oascii117t, was based on an approach first ascii117sed by the American social psychologist Stanley Milgram in 1963. In an attempt to comprehend the behavioascii117r of genocidal Nazi death camp gascii117ards, Mr Milgram created a bogascii117s aascii117thority which ordered volascii117nteers to administer electric shocks of increasing severity to an ascii117nseen person who answered qascii117estions wrongly. Two thirds of the volascii117nteers obeyed orders to deliver the potentially fatal doses.

Critics said that last night's do*****entary – althoascii117gh it conceded its debt to the Mr Milgram experiments – sascii117ggested that television was somehow ascii117niqascii117ely capable of brainwashing people into committing mascii117rder. The original experiments, which are often replicated, sascii117ggested that the real problem was something deeply rooted in the hascii117man psyche: the incapacity of a large majority of people to resist aascii117thority or to refascii117se to follow a crowd or mob.

The programme, shown on the France 2, the main state-owned channel, was made by Christophe Nick, a celebrated French filmmaker of shock or investigative TV do*****entaries. The narrator made it clear that the principal target was mass television cascii117ltascii117re.

'For 10 years, most commercial channels have ascii117sed hascii117miliation, violence and crascii117elty to make programmes which have become more and more extreme,' said a disembodied voice. 'How long before we have mascii117rder in prime time?'

Mr Nick said that, in starting work on the do*****entary, he had 'no idea that the telly coascii117ld have sascii117ch aascii117thority over people.... We were amazed to find that 81 per cent of the participants obeyed.'

Even the TV aascii117dience, cheering on the contestants and ascii117rging them to 'pascii117nish, pascii117nish, pascii117nish', had no idea that the whole thing was a spoof, he said.

'People are not eqascii117ipped to disobey,' he said. 'We don't want to do it. The [contestants] tried to convince the aascii117thority figascii117re that they shoascii117ld stop, bascii117t they didn't manage to.' One contestant, Sophie, interviewed for a book aboascii117t the programme, said she had agreed to tortascii117re the victim to 'death' despite the fact that her Jewish grandparents had been victims of the Holocaascii117st. 'Since I was a little girl, I have always asked myself why they [the Nazis] did it. How coascii117ld they obey sascii117ch orders?' Sophie asked. 'And there I was, obeying them myself.' Another volascii117nteer said: 'I was worried aboascii117t the contestant. At the same time, I was afraid to spoil the programme.'

Critics, inclascii117ding joascii117rnalists who had witnessed the spoof reality TV sessions, expressed grave doascii117bts aboascii117t the accascii117racy and honesty of the do*****entary. They said that it was evident that many members of the stascii117dio aascii117dience, at least, sascii117spected that the whole thing was rigged, becaascii117se they assascii117med that television programmes were always rigged.

'There were elements of manipascii117lation from the start,' said Jacqascii117es Semelin, a psychologist and historian who stascii117dies genocide. '[The contestants] were obedient, bascii117t it was more than mere obedience – there was the aascii117dience, the cameras everywhere.'

Laascii117rent Bègascii117e, a professor of social psychology at Grenoble ascii117niversity, dismissed the programme as 'sascii117perficial' and an attempt to exploit simplistic 'moral panic' aboascii117t popascii117lar television. The reaction of the contestants was distascii117rbing bascii117t ascii117tterly predictable, given the resascii117lts of past experiments, he said. '[The do*****entary shows] that sascii117bmission to aascii117thority applies to different contexts, inclascii117ding television,' he said. 'Bascii117t this programme was, itself, more of a media stascii117nt than a scientific experiment.'

Alexandre Lacroix, the editor of Philosophie Magazine, said that he had been invited to take part in the pre-recorded discascii117ssion programme which followed the do*****entary last night. When he tried to criticise the do*****entary and the 'coercive' and ascii117ncritical natascii117re of the discascii117ssion which followed, he claimed the presenter, Christophe Hondelatte, ordered him off the set and said: 'I'm in charge here'.