Jill Belli

Producing Utopia: The Marketing of Possibility

This paper explores CBS’s recent reality TV series, Kid Nation, which sent “40 new pioneers” into the supposed ghost town of Bonanza City, New Mexico, in an attempt “to build a town that works.”  Given the participants ages of 8-15, much of the show’s media attention centers on notions of legal and ethical responsibility: child labor law controversy, physical abuse, and psychological trauma.  Although the show’s Golding-esque Lord of the Flies themes are fascinating (human nature; whether kids left to fend for themselves can survive), in this paper I instead pursue the provocative questions that the CBS marketing trailer posits: “Can these incredible young people build a better society?  Can they succeed where adults have failed?”  I argue that the community’s potential as a radical social experiment is compromised by the infiltration into this “utopian enclave” of corporate interests and market values.  Built into the framework of the show is “a real-working kid economy” complete with a store and a saloon, a ”showdown in every episode” that pits ”kid against kid, to determine their paycheck and role,” rewards and gold stars (real solid gold, each worth $20,000), and social stratification (the “upper class” and the laborers).  These traditional consumerist and competitive motives prohibit the kids from engaging in authentic, community-centered work in the service of the greater good for the benefit of all.

Jill Belli is in her 4th year at The Graduate Center, CUNY, working towards a PhD in English as well as certificates in American Studies and Interactive Technology & Pedagogy. Her interests center on Composition & Rhetoric and Utopian Studies, subjects she teaches as a Chancellor’s Fellow at Queens College, CUNY.