<\/p>\n
In HBO Max\u2019s <\/span>The Rehearsal, <\/span><\/i>comedian Nathan Fielder uses extravagant resources to allow \u201cordinary people to prepare for life\u2019s biggest moments by \u2018rehearsing\u2019 them in carefully crafted simulations of his own design.\u201d In one of his experiments, Fielder rehearses parenthood, assuming the role of \u201cfather.\u201d While this parenting rehearsal spans multiple episodes, the simulation culminates in a metatextual investigation of itself. The ultimate episode, titled \u201cPretend Daddy,\u201d follows the end of this rehearsal in which Fielder simulates raising a child from zero to eighteen years old in two months. While the show\u2019s premise is to prepare for any risks in a given situation, this episode interrogates the issues the rehearsals themselves can create. Within performance and elaborate fabrications to prepare people for real events, Fielder\u2019s sincerity, introspection, and awareness of the ethical implications of his show emerge. Instead of perpetuating insincerity, it does the opposite; the dedication to illusion creates and emphasizes authenticity.<\/span><\/p>\n The episode opens with a birthday party for Fielder\u2019s pretend child, Adam, that captures the limitations of creating a realistic parenting experience using actors. While the party is full of guests, they are background actors, and because of union rules, they are prohibited from speaking; Fielder and Adam celebrate a fake birthday with fake guests in complete silence. This opening scene immediately draws attention to the shortcomings of the rehearsal\u2019s ability to be genuine \u2014 the guests respond to Fielder\u2019s conversation about the cake by silently mouthing something neither Fielder nor the audience can understand. The rehearsal is a production within a production primarily filmed with cameras placed throughout the house in which he and Adam live, presenting much of the footage as candid. While the rehearsal itself fails to emulate reality, the self-referential interludes portray Fielder in a very humanistic, vulnerable way. <\/span>The Rehearsal <\/span><\/i>creates a sense of real anxiety, desperation, and confusion within a heavily produced world.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n In \u201cPretend Daddy,\u201d Fielder\u2019s understanding of the real consequences of rehearsals on the participants dominates the non-rehearsal parts of the episode and invades the fictional narrative. Fielder replaces one of the child actors, Remy, with another, Liam, to coincide with Adam growing up. However, Remy cannot understand that Fielder is not his real dad. Fielder and Remy\u2019s mother, Amber, visibly show their emotions and anxiety about Remy\u2019s conflation between real and fake. This vulnerability is heightened by a voice-over of Fielder asking, \u201cWhat did I think was going to happen?\u201d In the continuing rehearsal with Liam, Fielder struggles to maintain the facade he constructed, asking: \u201cYou know I\u2019m not your real dad, right? We\u2019re just acting, you know that, right?\u201d Fielder\u2019s awareness of the consequences Remy faces pervades the fictional narrative, causing it to break for the first time. In the <\/span>Variety <\/span><\/i>article \u201c\u2018The Rehearsal\u2019 Finale: Nathan Fielder Faces the Consequences of His Fantasies,\u201d Ethan Shanfeld considers this scene pivotal. While Shanfeld wonders if Fielder would have a moment of realization of the harm his rehearsal has created, he writes: \u201cBut instead, he plunges deeper into the illusion, turning Liam into Remy into Adam in order to rehearse his own rehearsal.\u201d Yet, Fielder\u2019s further commitment to the illusion is an expression of the realization Shanfeld wants. Despite immersing himself \u201cdeeper into the illusion,\u201d <\/span>The Rehearsal<\/span><\/i> does not try to portray this reaction in a polished or seemingly produced way. In diving into simulations, the show conveys Fielder\u2019s real state of mind \u2014 trying to understand the damage the only way he knows how: rehearsing.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cPretend Daddy\u201d contains two narratives, coexisting and bleeding into one another. Narratives within and outside the rehearsal inform each other, with the boundaries between real and pretend merging. This dual narrative integrates the real consequences, the original rehearsal, and the production of more rehearsals to help understand the original one. Shanfeld describes this as \u201ca never-ending Russian doll of theater.\u201d The new rehearsals portray Fielder as spiraling \u2014 desperate to understand his own actions. Every real scenario is elaborately replicated, but the show never clouds the real anxieties Fielder cannot seem to reconcile; it expresses them.<\/span><\/p>\n In her article on reality TV, \u201cSelf-Serve Celebrity,\u201d Laura Grindstaff defines participants in reality shows as ordinary, writing that guests are ordinary not only because they are not actors but \u201calso because they are experiencing some problem or crisis\u201d (Grindstaff 76). Fielder\u2019s show exists in the intersection of real and fake, celebrity and ordinary. While all of the participants in the rehearsal are actors, the actors exist as their real selves as well. Despite Fielder\u2019s celebrity, he grapples with the question of whether he would be a good dad and navigates a crisis in the emotional aftermath of the rehearsal for Remy. Fielder becomes a realistic or \u201cordinary\u201d figure when wrestling with these issues and showing vulnerability. Fielder occupies a liminal space between celebrity and ordinary, with his real anxiety overshadowing his celebrity persona.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Grindstaff\u2019s concept of emotion work \u201crefers to the act of trying to change in degree or quality an emotion or feeling according to latent social guidelines\u201d (Grindstaff 77). In <\/span>The Rehearsal,<\/span><\/i> every person in the show is engaging in emotion work; Fielder acts as a father, and Remy acts as Fielder\u2019s son. However, when the actor cannot differentiate between emotion work and emotion \u2014 falsehood and actuality \u2014 the lines between reality and narrative blur. Remy\u2019s \u201cemotion work\u201d becomes emotion; it becomes real. Fielder visits Remy\u2019s house to help unblur these lines, asking Amber if Remy understands the concept of acting; she responds: \u201cI don\u2019t know.\u201d The rehearsals cultivate consequence-free scenarios that prevent their realism, but in working with Remy (outside of the rehearsal), Fielder experiences real consequences. In trying to undo his fake parenting, Fielder engages with Remy as a real person; he has a more accurate parental experience once he stops trying to be a father. As Fielder tells Remy that he was just \u201ca pretend daddy,\u201d Remy says: \u201cI don\u2019t want you to be Nathan, I want you to be \u2018daddy.\u2019\u201d The show adds a voiceover of Fielder asking, \u201cWhat on earth was I doing?\u201d The show highlights the genuine reflecting and processing Fielder undergoes, with the boundaries between real and fake fading away. In this conflict of real and fake emotions, narratives, and characters, <\/span>The Rehearsal <\/span><\/i>becomes incongruous, simultaneously a sincere fiction and manipulated reality.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Despite being a show premised on performance, <\/span>The Rehearsal<\/span><\/i> culminates in an introspective and authentic presentation of Fielder in the \u201cPretend Daddy\u201d episode. The numerous voiceovers convey his inner turmoil: \u201cYou may never be able to change what happened, but maybe, with a new perspective, you could try to change yourself;\u201d \u201cWhat else can you do when you\u2019re trying your best?;\u201d \u201cForgiving yourself sounds so easy and nice, but how does a person actually do that?\u201d <\/span>The Rehearsal<\/span><\/i> is uncharacteristically earnest for a reality TV show or a fictional one, and it contains aspects of both. Honesty and vulnerability are ubiquitous in both <\/span>The Rehearsal <\/span><\/i>and the rehearsal. The commitment to simulation does not negate the show\u2019s truthfulness \u2014 it emphasizes it. The HBO Max description of the show asks, \u201cwhen a single misstep could shatter your entire world, why leave life to chance?\u201d In \u201cPretend Daddy,\u201d Fielder\u2019s chaotic rehearsals mirror his difficulty coping with a new question. What if the single misstep that could shatter your entire world is the rehearsal made to avoid it?<\/span><\/p>\n Works Cited:<\/p>\n Ethan Shanfeld. \u201c\u2018The Rehearsal\u2019 Finale: Nathan Fielder Faces the Consequences of His \u200b\u200bFantasies,\u201d <\/span>Variety.com<\/span><\/i>, 19 August 2022, https:\/\/variety.com\/2022\/tv\/news\/the\u200b \u200b-rehearsal -finale-recap-nathan-fielder-1235346369\/<\/span><\/p>\n Laura Grindstaff. \u201cSelf-Serve Celebrity\u201d from <\/span>Production Studies: Cultural Studies of Media <\/span><\/i>\u200b<\/span>Industries<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cPretend Daddy.\u201d The Rehearsal, created by Nathan Fielder, season 1, episode 6, HBOMax, \u200b2022.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe Rehearsal | Official Website for the HBO Series | HBO.com.\u201d <\/span>HBO<\/span><\/i>, \u200b\u200b\u200b\u200bwww.hbo.com\/the-rehearsal.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In HBO Max\u2019s The Rehearsal, comedian Nathan Fielder uses extravagant resources to allow \u201cordinary people to prepare for life\u2019s biggest moments by \u2018rehearsing\u2019 them …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,51,1],"tags":[61],"class_list":["post-1030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-non-fiction","category-online","category-1","tag-annie-bragdon"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/scrippsjournal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/scrippsjournal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/scrippsjournal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/scrippsjournal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/35"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/scrippsjournal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1030"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/scrippsjournal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1030\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/scrippsjournal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/scrippsjournal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/scrippsjournal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}