So, according to Best Week Ever, a fictional, straight-to-DVD movie has been made based on the popular MTV reality series My Super Sweet 16.

I've placed the trailer below, along with another video featuring sick and injured kittens. This is part all part of a psychological test I'm performing on myself to see which footage will cause me to attempt suicide first. So far I think the Super Sweet 16 footage is the winner. It's pretty much caused me to lose all hope in humanity, and solidified my belief that God hates us. I can feel my desire to live slowly slipping awidfnifdopi;fedei

Who in the world is John Swartzwelder? Trust me, if you watch The Simpsons, you know who John Swartzwelder is. He has been a writer for the show since the first season, and has penned more episodes than anyone else. You know all those references to old time America and obscure, antiquated sayings? You can blame Swartzwelder for at least part of that.

Floris Vermeir wrote an interesting piece for Blogcritics about what might happen if reality TV ever gets out of hand. In a nutshell, she envisions a Truman Show kind of experiment where the "star" of the program is unaware they're being filmed and manipulated. Oddly enough, she never cites The Truman Show, even though it illustrates more or less exactly what she's talking about. She writes even further to explain how this would be considered a kind of slavery, and, we can assume, not a very good idea.

I don't see such a show ever seeing the light of day, at least not on television. I think the real question to ask is: If such a show existed, would people watch it? I think they would, and it's because despite having the word "reality" affixed to these programs, they're still very much fiction. To paraphrase an English professor from Todd Solondz's movie Storytelling, "Once you start writing, it all becomes fiction."  No matter what medium you work in, and no matter how much you try to use "real" people or base it on true events, the end result will be tainted by your own subjectivity. Taping someone without their permission would be inexcusable, but placing a television barrier between "actor" and audience creates fiction, and it creates detachment. If you're wondering what I'm talking about, just watch the evening news.