“Hey, you know what would be a good idea?”
“What?”
“Okay, now stay with me now. How about this: ‘Lord of the Flies:’ The reality show.”
“I—uh...”
“Come on! Like Survivor, but with children!”
“Brilliant.”
“Awesome! Now let’s do some more drugs!”
Okay, so I wasn’t there, but that’s probably a pretty reasonable representation of the pitch meeting for the new CBS reality show, Kid Nation. If you haven’t heard about this yet, the premise involves taking 40 children who range in ages from 8 to 15 and setting them loose in the New Mexico desert, where they are told to build their own society. Seriously. 40 children, 40 days in the middle of the school year, with no adult supervision and no school. Sound like a recipe for disaster? Turns out, in what’s sure to be the biggest shocker of the year, it probably was.
The New York Times is reporting that the as-yet-unaired reality show is already being hit with child abuse allegations. At least one parent of a participant has already written a letter to New Mexico state authorities alleging that “the experience bordered on abuse and neglect.” Bordered? Apparently, in addition to an 11-year-old whose face was splattered with hot grease as she was cooking, several children required medical attention after they drank bleach that was left in an unmarked soda bottle.
Now, I understand one kid drinking bleach from a soda bottle, because really, who expects a soda bottle to be filled with bleach? But several? Something tells me that the society these kids built isn’t exactly going to become the next world power, if you know what I mean.
Anyway, booby-trapped soda aside, CBS’ handling of this show gets shadier and shadier. Apparently, producers didn’t pick New Mexico as a filming location just for their Pueblo art and terra cotta pots. Conveniently, New Mexico is also one of the few states that has no specific regulations regarding using child actors in television and film productions.
When New Mexico labor officials got wind of the production, which included the children working upwards of fifteen-hour days at such tasks as cooking, cleaning outhouses and hauling supplies long distances in the New Mexico desert, they were understandably concerned. Jonathan Anschell, who oversees CBS’s West Coast legal office, said that New Mexico’s labor board made an unannounced visit to the set during production. The labor board, however, says that the inspector wasn’t actually able to inspect anything at all, or in fact, even gain access to the site.
CBS, however, insists that no laws were broken during the filming of this show. Ghen Maynard, the executive vice president for alternative programming at CBS, said, “We feel very comfortable that this was appropriate from a legal point of view.” The full legal fallout, as well as whether the controversy surrounding Kid Nation translates into a disaster or a ratings bonanza remain to be seen.
Kid Nation is scheduled to premiere on CBS September 19.
