If ‘the primary impetus’ of reality television is to entertain
(Holmes and Jermyn, 2004: 2), what ethical implications flow from its inherently
hybrid aesthetics? This article addresses this question by examining the 2002
televised ‘retrial’ of Louis Riel, a man executed by the
Canadian government in 1885. The retrial's producers encouraged viewers to vote
(through a website) on the merits of Riel's conviction ‘according to the
laws of Canada today’. As an aesthetic form that diverted and informed the
audience, the programme was a test of ‘post-documentary's’
ethical dimensions. In this case it was not hybridity of form and intent that
undermined the programme's potential to effect corrective justice; rather the
deliberate insertion of false information about the death penalty's application
misrepresented the criminal justice past and present.
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