On The Rehearsal
I have had a non-unsubstantial number of conversations about Nathan Fielder’s new series The Rehearsal over the past month. The show works as straight comedy but feels more interesting as something else. What exactly? I’m not sure. Perhaps a litmus test for one’s ability to endure cringe and/or general empathy levels? A follow-up character study of the “Nathan Fielder” persona1? An increasingly rare exercise in true Hollywood-funded monomaniacal art? All to say HBO made good on the whole “it’s not TV” promise with The Rehearsal! It’s challenging work and deserves to be discussed with nuance.
Unfortunately, the majority of Rehearsal discourse is as overly simplistic as it is boring. What I think people are trying to debate is whether the means of the show’s creation justifies the ends of its aired product. Instead, we have this: the “Nathan Fielder is a master manipulator whose work is inherently immoral” crowd on one side. The “Nathan Fielder is an infallible genius who must be shielded from any critique because he is zaddy” camp across the way. I don’t take either side because I’m still working through a lot of my thoughts on the show. I know it makes me laugh. I also know it makes me feel icky. More than anything, I know it’s a production feat worthy of great awe and admiration. All can be true at the same time! Consuming art shouldn’t always be a single-tracked emotional experience.
With the exception of the dueling pieces in The New Yorker from Richard Brody2 - who, judging by his Twitter feed, appears to have had his brain broken by the unrelenting fanboy backlash to his eloquently written, if not slightly out-of-touch with the comedy-of-today pan - and Naomi Fry - whose over-effusiveness for The Rehearsal seems inspired by Brody’s pan more than the show itself - there’s been a shortage of quality, critical writing on the show. It all boils down to “It is good because it is funny” versus “It is bad because it makes me uncomfortable.” Feels like a lot of knee jerk reactions and initial impressions for a show still in the middle of its first season. It is this writer’s opinion that everyone simply needs to cool off in the pool and let the first season wrap up before dropping more takes (except, of course, for me right now).
In some ways, I’m frustrated by the discourse surrounding The Rehearsal because of my passion for the docu-fiction comedy genre it belongs to. I’ve gotten dumb bothered seeing people tweet like they know the behind-the-scenes on a show like this just cause they read one Vice article where a guy (and really seems be relishing his 15 minutes) tries to do post-air date damage control. The man who crashed his Scion looks bad on The Rehearsal, yes. But it isn’t as simple as: “HE WAS MANIPULATED!" Just as the counterargument can’t be boiled down to: “THIS IDIOT SHOULD’VE KNOWN WHAT HE WAS GETTING INTO!” It’s complicated! And I’d argue, The Rehearsal, in its presentation of the show’s belabored production within the final product, acknowledges the stickiness of its own creation better than any show on TV.
Consider Episode 2, when Nathan calls the parents of child actors, asking for their continuing approval for the show to use their children on camera. Or Episode 4, where Nathan holds a rehearsal for a version of an acting class he’s teaching and includes a scene of the appearance release process. Not to mention the numerous scenes in every episode of PAs and producers scrambling to make the show happen. Unlike almost every reality show, The Rehearsal does not hide the process of its creation. It highlights it for effect, encouraging audiences to question the morality of the show’s existence rather than passively watching it as entertainment.
For those unaware, I’ve done a bunch of work as a field producer in the docu-fiction comedy genre. A large part of that job on a show like The Rehearsal entails finding and vetting the real life “marks.” The people everyone clowns on for “not looking into the show they agreed to be on.” Being their main point of contact through a deliberately opaque process. Field producers are what Twitter would call “manipulators and pieces of shit.” They take part in conceiving and constructing a reality that simultaneously helps the core creative team best achieve goals for story while keeping marks in the dark about the project’s truest aims. The job isn’t lying, per se, but it definitely involves a lot of (lawyer-condoned!) omission. It also involves hurriedly getting people to sign away any legal recourse without really letting them understanding everything going on. It doesn’t always feel good, but you trust your team to make something special. As such, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking on the dichotomy between the documentary ethics (or lack thereof) of manufacturing situations to create work that reflects its creators’ artistic point-of-view and the result-oriented demands of television/film production3. It is messy. But worst of all, it often results in work that doesn’t possess even a hundredth of the poeticism and point-of-view of The Rehearsal.
Ultimately, I believe the ends justify the means in the case of The Rehearsal because it is, at the end of the day, a deeply unforgettable work that reflects on itself. Acknowledging the moral ambiguity of its own existence in an effort to make a greater statement about humanity and connection. It could’ve just existed as a comedy but instead it brings the audience into its process, ironically opening itself to the very criticism that the Nathan Fielder character avoids at all costs.
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James Caan’s The Gambler might just be the best movie I’ve ever seen about the reformed American Jew experience.
Finally read this old article about the making of The Godfather. Each story better than the last.
Visiting Ellis Island after rewatching The Godfather and playing the intro song on your phone the entire time.
Selling things on Facebook Marketplace to make extra money
The character being some kind of meta version of the real life Nathan Fielder who created the character Nathan Fielder seen in Nathan For You. A bit of 3D chess.
It should be mentioned that the Brody review, which I mostly disagree with, falls squarely in line with his critical ethos. Read his wonderful review of Jordan Peele’s Nope, in which Brody raves over Peele’s idea of spectacle as something that consumes and destroys. The Rehearsal is nothing if not spectacle that’s impressed with its own existence (although I’d say Brody misjudges its own self-awareness). Either way, Brody remains one of America’s finest critics. As someone else tweeted, you should only be so lucky to see a great critic pan a piece of art you hold so sacred!
A lot of which comes up in this piece I wrote about the messy legacy of Sacha Baron Cohen’s groundbreaking, incredibly influential work in the docu-fiction comedy space. You can’t have Nathan’s work without Sacha’s. And to boot, Nathan honed his directing chops on Sacha’s 2010’s Showtime project: This Is America.