With reality TV, we have seen ‘ordinary people’ cohabit in a camera-filled house where ‘privacy’ seemingly does not exist; bachelors have publicly sought prospective partners; contestants battled it out shipwrecked on an island and aspiring ‘stars’ have attempted to shine on talent shows. Yet, the latest programme has managed to not only break form traditional reality TV formats, but stir controversy unlike any show before.
This programme consisted of kidneys and donations. Already, this seems tricky and a highly personal and sensitive subject to adopt for a reality show. Yet it merely gets more complicated. The main participant was a 37-year-old terminally ill woman, known as Lisa. She selected , on the basis of “history, profile and conversation with her family and friends”, one of three contestants to receive her kidney once she dies. While she was to make the final decision, viewers were encouraged to send text messages saying who they believed should get the kidney. This was the format for the Dutch De Grote Donorshow (The Big Donor Show), recently broadcast in the Netherlands.
However, while one may perhaps already be questioning, disapproving or even fuming with such a show; there is an additional twist. It has just been announced that the show was a hoax. The ‘donor’ Lisa was in fact an actress called Leonie Gebbink. In other words, The Big Donor Show was an expensive and controversial publicity stunt, but the makers of the programme have certainly succeeded in getting tongues wagging about ethics, kidney donations and the nature of reality TV.
The Big Donor Show was made by Big Brother’s producer Endemol for Dutch public broadcaster BNN. With the recent racism rows in Big Brother 7, Endemol is more than familiar with controversy. For that reason, one might have thought that they would be keen to create more critically lauded and viewer-friendly programmes.
Nonetheless, BNN and Endemol defended the show by claiming that above all, they hoped it would “highlight the acute shortage of donors in the Netherlands and encourage more donors to come forward.” There are presently around 200 people waiting for a kidney who die each year in the Netherlands, where the average waiting time exceeds four years. Paul Romen, managing director of Endemol Netherlands, claimed that the goal for staging this programme was above all “to promote a debate about this crisis,” a goal that has been indisputably achieved.
Additionally, BNN is seemingly very close to the cause of organ donorship and wanted this show to act as a tribute to BNN founder, Bart de Graaf, who died five years ago, aged 35, of kidney failure.
Despite these seemingly good intentions, many are not in agreement with the broadcasting of such a show.
First of all, viewers were only informed of the hoax on the last show when ‘donor’ Lisa was to select the contestant who would receive her kidney. Secondly, kidney-related illness and organ donations can prove to be very sensitive topics, and announcing so flippantly that The Big Donor Show was a hoax seems rather tactless. While Endemol and BNN seem to be believers that there is no such thing as bad press, the deliberate employment of shock-tactics as a way of raising awareness remains questionable. After all, donations and transplants can have life-changing consequences and remain a very serious topic. Those campaigning should provide an informed debate “in a responsible and sensitive manner”.
While ‘Lisa’ was in fact an actress, the three contestants vying for a kidney were real patients in need of a transplant. This has furthered the controversy, as, though made aware of the stunt, the patients nonetheless evidently agreed with the nature and aims of the show.
The feeling of contempt and protest towards The Big Donor Show was made clear by Dutch minister for media, Roland Plasterk, who publicly slammed it as “unethical and immoral.”
Such outrage was further emphasised by Professor John Feehally, former president of UK’s Renal Association who labelled the show “ethically totally unacceptable”. He added, “the set up of the programme bears no relationship to the way decisions are made about transplants in the real world.”
This leads to an endless debate surrounding reality television and the extent to which it reflects ‘reality’, ‘real’ people or ‘real’ scenarios. A concern that may arise is that in this particular scenario, The Big Donor Show made us aware that the programme was a stunt and attempted to justify its intentions and actions. Yet, surely we must question whether this is truly the first time that the public has been hoaxed. Somehow, it seems unlikely.
