Submitted by MasqureMan t3_zszh47 in television
I had an instinct when thinking of the child actors that it would be pretty intense for a child to have to play a pretend son and also the actor playing the pretend son. However, I didn’t have a thought in my head that any of these people were not acting until the last episode.
Even now, the show stands up if you believe it’s entirely scripted and everyone’s an actor. But if you add in the layer that the subjects of it are real people, it becomes an introspective yet scathing examination of the entertainment industry and how we ruin child actors mentally and socially.
We enjoy our movies, shows, and pop stars; we have celebrities who have grown up on the screen their entire life, but we never really think of how damaging that is for them. Being a fake son on television while having no other father figure in your life would absolutely leave you dependent on your television dad and devastated if they left.
I just wanted to share my experiences with this show that I’ll definitely be rewatching now that I have new context.
Edit: Thanks everyone who suggested “Nathan For You”. I’ll be checking it out