The year is 2000. The country is France. In the U.S., we’re reaping the benefits of those halcyon days of early reality TV, with Survivor and Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire both soaring in the ratings and changing television forever. But they also impact something much more corrosive: how we value and protect our own private lives, and those of our neighbors.
Back in time, though, France is still pure. Reality TV is not yet a thing there. The euro is new, only a year old. Jaques Chirac is President.
A couple of enterprising producers from a small, struggling French production company have turned their eye on the Dutch reality show, Big Brother, in which a group of strangers, called “houseguests,” live together and are filmed 24/7. Over time, the Dutch cameras help viewers witness how the stress of being confined starts to get to humans, like an enormous science experiment. It’s a study in petty evil and banal human behavior.
Indeed, it’s so banal that when the French TV producers first watch Big Brother together, trying to understand why their boss has asked them to get through a whole box of VHS tapes, the conversation goes like this:
Are these the rushes or the show?
No, this is the show.
Big brother, like the book?
Which book?
By Orwell.
(Silence.)
1984?
(More silence and uncomprehending looks.)
They’re actors, it’s not real.
I think it is.
Why are they on TV?
Because they are stars.
Why are they stars?
Because they are on TV.
It’s a huge hit in Holland.
Is it stupid or is it brilliant?
And that, my friends, is the question that hovers over Culte. This brilliantly written, fast-paced, and uncomfortable six-part docudrama series streaming this month on Amazon Prime, directed by Louis Farge, is reminiscent of some of the best TV shows and movies that wrestle with morality, both present and absent, in production rooms. Think: Succession, The Morning Show, The Newsroom, and, of course, the classic Broadcast News.
Culte follows the speedy creation and subsequent ratings rise of France’s first reality TV show, called Loft Story, which calls itself a “dating show.” It’s more than a dating show, though. It’s also a contest to see who will “win” the approval of French audiences, and who will, instead, be voted out and sent home.
To this end, Loft Story producers place eleven 25-year-old, attractive singles—6 men, 5 women—in a “loft” together for eleven weeks. Cameras and mirrored one-way windows are placed throughout the loft, so the producers can watch the contestants 24/7 (with the exception of the toilets), as they couple, uncouple, fight, and, eventually, perhaps, have a “love story.” The “loft” itself is in a cavernous warehouse space outside of Paris. There’s a “confessional” room where producers can have a contestant come speak with them, Big Brother-style: a disembodied voice asking questions, hoping for divulgences. A therapist has been hired to intervene, unseen, if need be. The contestants are paid by the week, and cannot leave.
All of this is claustrophobic. In the wrong hands, the gross indecency of it might have been played for laughs. But what makes this show so viscerally and uncomfortably damning are the performances. Marie Colomb (The Beasts), plays a go-go dancer named Loana, a working class woman from Nice who seems to have not just a ceiling pressing down on her, but one made of cement. Anaïde Rozam plays Isabelle, the young, whip smart, outside-the-box producer, who takes the idea of Big Brother and turns it into Loft Story, even while she is on the brink of being fired. Jacqueline Corado, as the producer Elena, adds heart, levity, and acting heft to this cast, while speaking “Frespañol” to such charming effect, you won’t forget her. Finally, Sami Outalbali, best known for playing Rahim in Sex Education, plays Karim, a producer who becomes overly involved in the fate of the show’s contestants, and suffers because of it, giving an outstanding performance in the process.
Throughout the show, as themes like racism, misogyny, what should be allowed on mainstream TV (when young children will inevitably see it), drinking, smoking and drugs, are unpacked and left strewn about the emotional minefield of this TV world, the fictional producers themselves become as trapped and toxic as the inhabitants of the “loft” they constructed.
Indeed, in an excoriating critique of the rise of reality TV, and its future stepdaughter, social media, Culte blurs the lines between the producers, viewers, contestants, and even those of us watching at home today, 24 years later. Like the viewers driving up Loft Story’s ratings, we, too, become complicit in this degrading unraveling of basic human decency. This may be the most shocking thing the show achieves: Like a Russian doll, the layers of collusion get deeper, until no one’s hands are clean, even yours.
Needless to say, the real-life Loft Story pushed buttons in France. The French, as they often will, piled trash in front of the production offices in protest. Various government agencies attempted to shut the show down. But as the scandal increased, more people tuned in and more money got made.
Though I binged this show on a rainy, jittery pre-election morning, the perfect day for any distraction, I found that I had to turn it off every so often to go wash my face, take a breath of fresh air, and start a sourdough boule. Culte left me so uncomfortable at times, I almost couldn’t stand it. But I kept going back to watch, drawn perpetually into the cycle of voyeurism.
I woke up two days later, and a former reality TV star, who is a racist, rapist, and convicted felon, was my President. Again. But, no, I hadn’t been sucked into the TV. This was real. And, terrifyingly, it doesn’t end on episode six.
Caitlin Shetterly is Frenchly’s Editor-at-Large. She is the author of the novel, Pete and Alice in Maine, (published by Harper Books in 2023).
