Of course, the reality genre isn't ours. It originated in the Netherlands and England, then spread to the U.S., but it's true that only after it clicked here did France pick up on it. That's probably why one French lawyer associates it with us. What a pickle. The French program features a group of twentysomethings living in a large apartment and being monitored by twenty-six cameras and fifty microphones.
Residents are to be voted out, one by one, until two remain.
If it's crudity the French are looking for, there are plenty of American shows that, as far as I'm concerned, they can have. This season, the ABC drama, apparently bored by mere bare buttocks and desperately striving to be cutting-edge, has resorted to brief shots of a severed penis and a woman's pubic hair. Reportedly, in that pilot, a woman exposes her breasts. You might contend that ultimately, this scene will wind up on the cutting-room floor, but former NBC executive Roz Weinman would disagree with you. The breasts will somehow get in.