"Kids Gone Wild" seems like a more appropriate title for the new CBS reality series "Kid Nation," which aired its premier this Wednesday. Lacking in originality and taste, the show attempts to turn kids' unsupervised escapades and misadventures into entertainment, but ultimately fails. Now there's a big surprise.
The show follows 40 kids from all walks of life, aged eight to 15, as they attempt to establish a functioning community in a New Mexico ghost town. Led by four town council members, 11-year-olds Mike and Taylor and 12-year-olds Laurel and Anjay, participants must come together to manage the daily workings of a town, including everything from cooking meals on a wood-burning stove, cleaning the outhouses, doing laundry, managing the town stores, and maintaining general law and order. The incentive, however, is somewhat appealing: Each week the council members award the kid who displays the most leadership a shiny gold star worth $20,000.
At the beginning of the show, the kiddies are dropped in the middle of the New Mexican dessert and are instantly put to work. Not only must they walk the lengthy trip into to town, they also have to tow massive wagons full of supplies. Reality television only uses group manual labor for one reason: to create enemies.
Mere minutes into their trek into town, it is obvious that Mike is not doing his fair share of the work. In an attempt to exert his power as councilman, he walks energetically alongside the wagons, directing everyone else's movements. When 15-year-old Greg, obviously annoyed by this younger kid bossing him around, suggests Mike try and pull a wagon, the stage is set for drama. Grasping the wagon handles, Mike pulls with all his might, but the wagon doesn't budge. Satisfied with his complete humiliation of Mike, Greg pushes him out of the way and returns to pulling the wagon through the desert.
This brief power struggle preempts the myriad of conflicts that develop once the kids reach town: Mike soon owns the role of the egotistical, power-tripping official; Taylor takes on the part of the catty beauty queen by refusing to do dishes; and Greg solidifies his label as the trouble-making teenager after he shoves Mike and leaves graffiti on town buildings. A hierarchy system dividing kids into districts of laborers, cooks, merchants and the upper class, each with a respective salary, further encourages conflict between individuals.
As entertaining as this all sounds, the actual daily activities of these kids are anything but. They cook meals, manage the picturesque candy and toy stores, chase jack rabbits and milk goats. Watching the kids attempt to exercise their newfound independence is incredibly boring for anyone old enough to know that chalk graffiti isn't a heinous crime and that being left alone, unsupervised, with the opposite sex doesn't lead to the contraction of cooties.
The tests of judgment these kids must pass are just as dull, incredibly predictable, and often make a mockery of their supposed independence. For example, having to pick between receiving a television set or seven new outhouses to accompany the single bathroom provided at the start of the episode becomes a topic of spirited debate. These kids contemplate sharing one bathroom between 40 people for the sake of television! Chalk up one for the media.
"Kid Nation" generated a great deal of controversy leading up to its premier. It garnered immense criticism for its participant contract, which releases producers from liability, including death, as well as for the primitive living conditions of the participants. There was speculation as to whether or not CBS strategically placed the show in New Mexico to avoid certain child labor laws, and further controversy arose when reports surfaced that four kids became ill after accidentally drinking bleach from an unlabeled bottle.
Although one cannot help but worry when watching 10-year-olds attempt to operate a wood-burning stove or unroll their thin mattresses onto dusty, plank wood-floors, one question comes to mind: why more of these kids aren't jumping at the chance to go back home (an option that is offered to all participants every week)?
It isn't the living conditions, but the social environment that is the most unsettling aspect of this show. It fosters power struggles and back-stabbing among individuals still learning their multiplication tables.
Is this 40-day adventure truly a character building experience or just another playground for kids to bully and tease, this time with no adult around to stop them?
