Plinth

Someone who has demonstrated a keen interest in the ethics and alchemy of reality television is Nathan Fielder, who achieved cult fame (or perhaps infamy) with his series Nathan for You (which coincidentally began airing one week before Gogglebox), a docu-reality program in which Fielder – who 'graduated from one of Canada's top business schools with really good grades' – sets out to turn around the fortunes of struggling Southern Californian businesses. The line between reality and fiction is consistently blurred, with Fielder playing a fictionalised version of himself, but for the most part, the business owners and patrons he interacts with are real, frequently baffled by Fielder’s social awkwardness and strange tactics. At several points, Fielder’s actions on the show made real-world headlines, notably his Dumb Starbucks stunt and the 'Really Cute, but Totally Faked' video of a goat and a pig in peril at a petting zoo.

Fielder attracted critical acclaim and a helping of controversy in 2022 with his follow-up series, The Rehearsal, in which he helped ordinary people prepare for difficult situations by meticulously recreating them with actors and elaborate sets. Meanwhile, the Safdie Brothers, darlings of the lo-fi New York filmmaking scene, had already been attracting fans through their down-and-dirty style, making use of guerilla filming techniques and hiring a variety of non-professional or first-time actors to work in their early films Daddy Longlegs, Heaven Knows What and Good Time. (It’s worth noting that this approach, while creating a feeling of gritty authenticity in their films about the fringes of East Coast city life, can lead to exploitation – in early 2023 it emerged that a 17-year-old girl was coerced into shooting a nude scene for Good Time, which was later cut from the final edit.)

A team-up between Fielder and the Safdies – specifically Benny Safdie – makes sense. Their acute interest in the most popular form of voyeurism and the search for authenticity in art makes them kindred spirits, and The Curse, while a scripted comedy, plays directly into this, as well as tapping into a genre that attracts millions of viewers around the world. Alongside Emma Stone, they form a trio of upwardly mobile, socially conscious (or at least keen to be seen that way) characters, who set out to shoot a reality television series which follows Whitney and Asher Siegel (Stone and Fielder) as they create environmentally-friendly homes in Española, New Mexico and attempt to improve the fortunes of the locals, who are primarily non-white. Overseeing the circus is Dougie Schecter (Safdie), a slimy veteran television producer seemingly unbound by the morals that keep most of us in check on a day-to-day basis. His priority is getting the show – named Fliplanthropy – greenlit by the network.

Utilising handheld cameras and expansive wide shots which create a sense of eagerly bearing witness to something we’re not supposed to, Fielder and Safdie draw us into the uncomfortable, unscrupulous world of the Siegels and Schecter, where any sincerity about improving life for the residents of Española is undercut by the fact Whitney and Asher’s show is ultimately a ploy to sell expensive, barely functional properties, and to make stars of its lead couple. Their altruistic efforts – subsidised rent for local businesses, jobs for unemployed residents – only matter while the cameras are rolling, as much as Whitney and Asher insist they’re committed to real change. Dougie, at least, seems unbothered by the notion of staging everything for dramatic effect. After all, he’s a veteran. He knows what we, the audience, want to see. Not the truth, but some facsimile of it. Good television. No one really watches Grand Designs for the architectural feats: the show has endured because of the sense of schadenfreude audiences get watching a clueless rich person fly too close to the sun.

Yet to describe The Curse as a satire on reality television is a simplification. Over ten hours the show tackles much more than the manipulation of our minds through pop culture, including but not limited to pregnancy and miscarriage; conversion to Judaism; shame, particularly involving the male anatomy, and yes, of course, curses. The mirrored exteriors of Siegel’s homes (a blatant copy of Doug Aitken’s very real ‘Mirage’), which cause an uptick in local avian deaths as confused birds repeatedly fly into them, seem an apt metaphor for The Curse’s distorted reality – one that revels in the contortions of self that afflict not only so-called ‘reality’ television, but our daily lives.

In episode four, ‘Under the Big Tree’, Asher begrudgingly attends a comedy workshop after Whitney and Doug realise he isn’t coming across well on-camera. In the excruciating final scene, Asher does something peculiar during an icebreaker exercise. The camera lingers on his thousand-yard stare in the aftermath; this is a man who doesn’t even know how to approximate relating to others. Meanwhile, his wife is all too willing to throw him under the bus to come across better herself; the more time she spends with Dougie, the less she seems to worry about the show’s – or her own – authenticity.

For the audience, there’s the same sense of schadenfreude we get watching any rich person get their comeuppance, which has fuelled the success of recent shows and films including The White Lotus, Triangle of Sadness and The Menu as well as our long-standing obsession with reality television villains. There’s also the satisfaction of being in on the joke as we understand the falsehoods of the fictional show, and the performances Asher and Whitney put on for the camera. But as The Curse continues amid the New Mexico desert, time and sense begin to melt away. The line between reality and fantasy blurs, until everything feels like a Dalí painting. In their desperation to appear #relatable, Whitney, Asher, and Dougie become untethered from their own humanity, and maybe even the planet. Is this the so-called curse in action – the consequences of their actions? How much does the show reflect our own reality back to us, where marginalised communities often have to sell off portions of their identity to white benefactors just to make a living? The Curse offers no easy answers, the year’s outstanding achievement in uncomfortable, engrossing viewing.

By Hannah Strong