Too much, too young? - Exploited children on reality TV

Published Wednesday 16 November 2005 at 11:05 by Roz Britton

With reality television turning the spotlight on to stage school hopefuls, Roz Britton asks whether children are being exploited by a potentially manipulative genre

A new twist has been added to the tried and tested formula of reality television, with a glut of shows now starring youngsters. But should we be worrying about the ethics of exposing children to the media in this way?

The latest to join the trend is the BBC, which last month launched Brit School, a year in the life of Britain’s only state-funded academy for the performing arts. Last month Channel 4 gave us The Unteachables - a reality show charting the progress of academically challenged teens - and Rock School, in which choir school pupils are transformed into a rock band.

The stars of all three shows are aged below 18 and, in the case of Brit School - which completes its ten-week run on CBBC later this month - the cameras have access to the children’s school and home lives. If reality television as a genre is charged by some with exploiting and manipulating its subjects, what happens when the subjects are children and potentially more vulnerable than their adult counterparts?

Sylvia Young allowed cameras into her namesake stage school for the BBC documentary When Will I Be Famous in 2003, which filmed a term in the lives of the school’s pupils. She believes that while the series was a success for everyone, it still demanded a degree of editorial control from herself for the sake of the children.

“I would not have allowed anything that would put the children at risk of exploitation - we were very, very strong on this and the BBC were very accommodating,” she said.

“I did not have concerns about how the children were going to be portrayed in the documentary because we had special dispensation to see the rushes before the programme aired, so that we were able to recommend to the BBC changes and omissions.”

Young feels that the documentary also allowed the famous school to be showcased in a new light.

“The documentary allowed us to portray the fact that the school was strong academically,” she explained. “So we could show a side that was different to the one that people know about us - the vocational side.”

Clearly there can be benefits from such documentaries for the establishment. But can a pupil benefit from cameras in the classroom? How many of us would wish to have our high school years - bad hair-cuts et al - saved for posterity in glorious technicolour?

Siobhan McGrath, a theatre pupil, is one of the 18-year-old stars of Brit School. The show follows Siobhan as she produces a play on the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. She admits she was nervous, if optimistic, about her portrayal.

“I just fell into the documentary,” she says. “Originally I was not going to be in it but then the crew started filming me more and more. When they first came to the school, I wasn’t really thinking about it. So I guess I did not really consciously sit down and worry about the way that I would be portrayed.

“My mum was really happy for me. It was quite exciting and we just had a laugh about it. I trusted the school and knew that whatever they had chosen to become involved with would be a good project.

“I’ve just been myself. I’m sure I’ll come across as a bit bossy but I don’t think that anything negative will come of it.”

Brit School perhaps differs from many of the other reality TV series featuring children in that, unlike shows such as The Unteachables and Brat Camp, which focus on the unruly behaviour of ‘problem’ kids, Brit pupils are shown to be hardworking and well behaved. The show narrates the children’s successes rather than portraying a bleak view of British education.

This, believes Brit School principal Nick Williams, is one of the show’s key strengths.

“I think that Brit School provides a view of young people, which is different to any other programmes that are made about teenagers in the educational world,” he said.

Williams is also keen to make clear that the series - produced by an ex-pupil - despite showing the struggles of dancers, actors and musicians trying to make it in the showbiz industry, is a world apart from other fame-driven shows such as X Factor.

He added: “The Brit School doesn’t deal with the stereotypical fame addiction or celebrity addiction that we see in other shows. It is about the professional skills of the students. It is about being the best actor or dancer that you can be, not about being the most famous.”

Clearly, the intentions of those behind the shows is to be as sensitive to the needs and feelings of their young stars as is possible. However, putting the worthy or positive concepts driving the programmes to one side, the reality remains that television companies are profiting from delving into the lives of young people. Is this something we really should encourage?

As for the child ‘stars’, arguably it will be some years before they are able to reason whether they have been exploited by this genre or not. Only time will tell.