We Are Big Brother's Reality Television Star

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Recommended: Reality TV shows and their influence on America

Today, the American people are obsessed with reality television. Television shows such as, So You Think You Can Dance and The Bachelorette are just two examples of the fifteen reality or unscripted shows that placed on the Top 20 Highest Rated Television Programs in 2010 (Carter). What Americans fail to realize is they too are the stars of their own reality television show. Although their actions are not being broadcasted to the rest of the country, American citizens are still being monitored by the government through wire taps, GPS locators and cameras. These are just a few examples of ways the American government is beginning to introduce Michel Foucault’s idea of a utopia, called the Panopticon, into modern day American society. Although the government is trying to be as low-key as possible, movies like Enemy of the State tries to spotlight how obsessed society and the government are about surveillance. Though the motives of the government differ greatly from those of the citizens the line between right and wrong has become so obscured over the past decade that society doesn’t pay much attention to the surveillance being conducted upon them unless it directly affects the way they go about their life.

Enemy of the State follows Robert Dean, a labor lawyer, who is given a video of the murder of a Congressman Hammersley. When Hammersley was murdered, he was trying to pass a bill that would allow for law enforcement to greatly expand their surveillance abilities. The National Security Agency, in hopes of finding the video, sets up wire taps and cameras in Dean’s home. Unfortunately the National Security Agency was not able to find the video so they instead convict Dean of murder, he is then fired from his job and all his bank ac...

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...he State accurately display the panoptic system described by Foucault and persuades the viewers to ask themselves a question; how much control does the government really need in order to protect its citizens?

Works Cited

Carter, Bill. "Tired of Reality TV, but Still Tuning In."thenytimes.com. The New York Times, 13 Sep 2010. Web. 25 Mar 2012.

Foucault, Michel. "Panopticism." Situating Inquiry. 370-397. Print.

Lockup. MSNBC, 2008. Television.

Mitchell, Gail, prod. Lockdown. National Geographic, Television.

"NSA warrantless surveillance controversy." Wikipedia. N.p., 27 Mar 2012. Web. 28 Mar 2012.

Scott , Tony, dir. Enemy of the State. Perf. Will Smith, Gene Hackman, Jon Voight, and Lisa Bonet. Universal Pictures, 1998. Film.

Weir, Peter, dir. The Truman Show. Perf. Jim Carey, Ed Harris, Noah Emmerich, and Laura Linney. Paramount Pictures, 1998. DVD.

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