“TF1 must be responsible for the proper functioning. TF1 must clarify this and it would be easier for them to condemn the candidates than to maintain that it is false”, comments on franceinfo François Jost, semiologist, director of the Television review and professor emeritus in information and communication sciences at Sorbonne Nouvelle University, while candidates for the Koh Lanta show are accused of having participated to clandestine dinners. The final airs Tuesday, December 14 evening.
franceinfo: Why are these accusations of illegal dinners so shocking?
Francois Jost: Koh Lanta is a role-playing game that relies on a promise of authenticity and has fairly strict rules with trials, immunities, etc. And there, all of a sudden, everything changes. We realize that this authenticity is feigned, that the rules are betrayed. What surprised me the most about this affair is that we learn that on the island, where we are told that the participants are completely abandoned, you just have to walk a little bit to find a guesthouse that gives you food. They haven’t gone very far. So all that halo of authenticity that makes the show suddenly disappears. There is always in Koh Lanta this idea of Robinson [Crusoé]. We are remaking a community, a society from nothing by mastering nature, and there obviously mastery of nature goes through culture, that is to say the dishes cooked by a few people who are nearby. What has been added over the years to Koh Lanta [diffusée depuis 2001], it’s social networks, the fact that all rumors are possible, that there are immediately people who are for and others who are very disappointed by these revelations. It is amplified.
Can’t the candidates do what they want?
They are professionals who are paid to act, since the famous case of “The Island of Temptation” where a lawyer had proved that it was a job to be in a reality show. So what is curious is that when we question the candidates, they have the conviction to do a job, they accepted the rules and therefore there they cheated. We find all this distortion between what people say and do, for which our ministers are also criticized.
Can this sequence have an impact on the future of the show?
The question is: who is to blame? The public risks losing confidence, but in whom? If it is in the candidates, it is not too serious because there are others. If it’s the host, it’s much more serious. And if it is the channel that is unable to manage the rules it has proposed, it becomes very serious. TF1 must be responsible for proper operation. TF1 must clarify this and it would be easier for them to condemn the candidates than to maintain that it is false.