Nathan For Me
TV sometimes seems like a jumble of inappropriate nothings, displaying fake lives and fake concepts. The worst of all television genres is reality TV. The situations presented in shows such as Keeping Up With the Kardashians and various Real Housewives shows are often fake, inflated, and provide a false sense of what reality truly is. Survivor always has a blindside vote. Somebody always wins The Amazing Race.
There are exceptions to this mundanity, though. Because Comedy Central’s Nathan For You showcases raw human interactions, it remains beautifully unpredictable. It’s a hilariously different type of reality TV—a type that I’ve grown rather fond of.
Nathan For You’s host is the satirically dry comedy writer and actor Nathan Fielder. Nathan aims to fix small businesses’ problems through his use of outlandish ideas and dodgy morals. Generally the format of the show consists of two struggling business owners who fall victim to Nathan's ideas in separate segments. Nathan seeks out businesses that correspond with his premise, then pitches his ideas to convince the business owners to go along with his ludicrous plans. Nathan’s plans seem to be in good faith to the business owners’ goals, but are rarely viable to maintain.
In one episode, Nathan tasks himself with increasing customer count at a gift shop in downtown Los Angeles. The only problem with the business is that its location is too far from the mainstream hustle and bustle of the L.A. gift shop scene. Nathan and the writers have the brilliant idea of using his camera crew and TV budget to create what looks like the set of a movie. Instantaneously, people flock to the fake set, hoping to see some real Hollywood action. Nathan tells the enormous crowd that they are shooting a movie with Johnny Depp and need extras. The extras’ role is to go into the souvenir shop and buy something. The amount of people that flock into the store after hearing this, only to find out that they have to use their own money to purchase the gift, is hilarious. Naturally some people are disgruntled, but the writers have a plan. Nathan hires a rather convincing Johnny Depp impersonator to summon the unhappy customers to his trailer, and tell them that he thought they did a great job in the movie. Fake Johnny hilariously signs a bunch of stuff, and the disgruntled customers leave none the wiser, thinking they have gotten away with something priceless in return for their lost money.
“The Hero” is an episode that deviates from the show’s normal format. In this episode Nathan aims to turn around somebody’s life rather than somebody’s business. Nathan’s Craigslist post that asks people to apply for a “life makeover” introduces Corey—a man that lives with his grandparents, and plays videogames all day. Corey agrees to live in a camper in the Mojave desert for a week while somebody else (Nathan) pretends to be him, and attempts to make him seem like a hero to the rest of the world. The writers of the show go far here, and show true commitment to the bit. Prior to meeting his subject, Nathan trained for months to learn how to walk a tightrope. He then studied everything about Corey, and tried his best to become him; scanning his face for a latex prosthetic, using body padding, and doing his best to mimic Corey’s mannerisms. Then, perfectly disguised as Corey, Nathan goes on a date and sets Corey up with a girlfriend to boost his confidence when he returns from the desert.
The shamelessly funny writing of the show prevails in the episode’s twist. Nathan claims to be happier pretending to be somebody else (Corey), and you see his dry, conserved disposition blossom into a full-of-life, outgoing personality. The writers brilliantly provide a secondary story that amusingly conflicts with Nathan’s initial goal; it pits Nathan’s desires for helping other people against his character’s desire to be the hero himself. By the time of Corey’s newsworthy tightrope walk for a breast cancer research charity, Nathan is fully immersed in the character. Nathan was only supposed to walk across the tightrope once, but since the transformation from fake Corey to real Corey was to happen in the tent on the other side of the tightrope, Nathan says in the most serious tone, “I wasn't ready to stop being Corey just yet.” Nathan crosses the wire five more times before he gives Corey his life back. Corey emerges from the tent, kisses the girlfriend Nathan got him, and returns to his grandparents who truly think he just crossed a tightrope eighty feet in the air. By the end of the episode the hero is supposed to be Corey, but to me the true heroes are the writers that followed all the aspects of this premise like bloodhounds sniffing out escaped convicts.
Writing in Nathan for You’s format must’ve been incredibly challenging, and probably took a serious amount of planning. Someone writing a sitcom, for example, has the power to come up with the scenarios, and figure out exactly how the characters will solve their problems. In Nathan For You, the writers could come up with all the scenarios they wanted, but they could only assume how their real life characters would react to the presented concepts. The people in the gift shop episode needed to react in a way that was not too serious, and somehow predictably reasonable. One knowledgeable person that could see through the public’s infatuation with a Hollywood set, fake Johnny Depp, and the ploy that Nathan had set in place, could’ve ruined the idea with an explosive reaction or legal pursuance. The idea of “The Hero” was a fragile one too, as it relied on the fact that the writers found someone desperate enough to sit in the desert for a week while somebody else did all the hard work to turn their life around.
In an interview with the L.A. Times Nathan called the show, “...a very inefficient way of making TV.” It must’ve been. The show entirely hinged on whether or not people can see through the smoke and mirrors of Nathan’s charade; television cameras, Nathan’s no-nonsense persona, and his unshakeable faith that the questionable loopholes will work flawlessly. We don’t see the countless times the ideas must’ve fell flat or simply couldn’t be chased because no person bought into them. As the viewers, we get to see all of the ideas that work, and can subsequently revel in the show’s brilliance.
The writers of Nathan For You daringly rely on the loose promise that real people’s actions are funny. This manifests prominently impressive, hilarious, and awkward television that consistently delivers belly laughs and amazement—something I’ve never derived from any other reality TV show. The episodes in Nathan For You are not about making suspense or drama to keep you coming back. Its endearing cunning and hilarious wit are enough to convince a person the next episode is worth a watch.
Writing in such a precarious format must be quite the thrill, like fishing with no bait on the hook in a survival situation. You can’t be sure if anything is going to bite and I assume you begin to lose faith. When something does take the hook, it must feel like the most glorious fish ever pulled from the water. When the premise for a new idea succeeded, the writers of Nathan for You probably looked much like a little kid in yellow rain boots holding up his first bluegill, brandishing that gummy, intermittent tooth smile cheek to cheek.
