ContractsProf Blog

Editor: Jeremy Telman
Oklahoma City University
School of Law

Tuesday, April 18, 2023

The Truman Show Realized in "Jury Duty"

Jury_Duty_TV_series_posterYesterday, we posted about the imminent possibility of mental manipulation through brain implants, a world that Philip K. Dick could have easily imagined.  Today, we post about another fictional idea realized.

Thanks to OCU Law 1L Emily Hurt to letting me know about "Jury Duty," a new show on Amazon Freevee.  The show follows Ronald Gladden, a young man who answered an ad on Craig's List and was thus unwittingly cast as himself, a juror, on a mockumentary that follows a jury trial.  I have now watched the first three episodes of the show.  I am not recommending it.  From the reviews, it seems harmless, and Mr. Gladden, now in on the gag, seems delighted with his fifteen minutes of fame.  The point here is that, as with brain implants, the danger of malicious manipulation have already been foretold in the more sinister and yet still hopeful The Truman Show.  

By all accounts, Mr. Gladden is a great stand-in for Jim Carrey's character in The Truman Show.  Like Truman, Mr. Gladden is a kind, receptive person, who rolls with the punches and takes everything in stride.  Unlike Truman, he does not rebel, but he only had to survive seventeen days of shooting rather than a lifetime of 24/7 surveillance.  

Rendy Jones, reviewing the show for RogerEbert.com, provides a rave.  He concludes

The last prank on the audience by "Jury Duty" is how it wrings our emotions more than belly laughs. It's a solid workplace comedy that tells a resonant story of community, delightfully unpacking how it’s not just about serving in this world but who you’re serving with.  

Indeed, whether or not the show works, props to the show runners for orchestrating a comedy shot in a courtroom without giving itself away to the patsy.  Although one has to wonder about Mr. Gladden's ability to suspend disbelief.  Let's face it, courtroom proceedings are mostly dull.  The showrunners try to spice things up with pranks and pratfalls.  The characters are all more eccentric than they need to be.  Neither the characters nor the pranks are  especially realistic.

Reviewing the show in The Guardian, has a great opening paragraph: 

With the head of a hidden-camera prank show, the heart of a workplace sitcom, and the body of a true crime documentary, the boundary-blurring new comedy Jury Duty makes for an odd chimera of genres.

The review also reveals the truly appalling fact that Mr. Gladden was sequestered for some significant portion of the shoot.  And that's where contracts come in.

"Jury Duty" wants to compare itself to "The Office," but it is really more akin to a more polished version of Sacha Baron Cohen's shtick.  We've covered Mr. Cohen's Borat-related antics pretty thoroughly on this site and we also covered Roy Moore's suit against him.  Ultimately, I'm not a fan of the broadly-worded release coupled with pressure tactics that trick people into participating in something that is not at all what it represents itself to be, even if it still is a "documentary-style film."  Roy Moore (or his handlers) should have known better, even before he met up with Mr. Cohen and his unibrow, but I sympathize with the ordinary people whom Mr. Cohen and his production company put in impossible situations.  

So, I'm not sure that it is such a great thing that Mr. Gladden is being such a good sport about the fact that he was essentially held hostage for two weeks in order to provide profit for a production company and uneven entertainment fro however many viewers a comedy series on Freevee can garner.  What's the next step, and how do these production companies protect themselves against suit should the next mark respond with something other than Stockholm Syndrome?  They no doubt have a bulletproof waiver, but courts should not uphold a waiver that one is induced to sign through fraudulent inducement.   

I like a good laugh as much as the next person.  But there are things I value more: contractual consent and dignity.

https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/contractsprof_blog/2023/04/the-truman-show-realized-in-jury-duty.html

Commentary, Current Affairs, Television, True Contracts | Permalink

Comments