Just who is in control on Jerrod Carmichael Reality Show?

How real can reality TV ever be?

That's a question comedian Jerrod Carmichael tries to answer — kind of — on his new show, simply titled Jerrod Carmichael Reality Show.

For this week's group chat, host Elamin Abdelmahmoud chats with culture critics Sarah-Tai Black, Rad Simonpillai and Jackson Weaver about the surreal, intimate new reality show that feels both risky and uncomfortable to watch.

We've included some highlights below, edited for length and clarity. For the full discussion, listen and follow the Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud podcast, on your favourite podcast player.

WATCH | Today's episode on YouTube:

Elamin: Sarah-Tai, this show is trying to play with this line that gets played with a lot in reality shows, which is: what is real and what is not? If someone has not seen Jerrod Carmichael Reality Show, how would you describe it to them?

Sarah-Tai: Well, in the first episode he describes it as trying to Truman-Show himself, which I think is true in one regard, but then in the other it's also playing with those very real power dynamics that are present in reality TV in a way that's different from film. It's very intimate, or at least it's playing with the idea of what we think intimacy might look like in this format.

I think it's also very much for the "therapized" of us, in as much as if you're not used to thinking through actions and intentions from every single angle, you're going to be so just thrown into the deep end with this, because it's just a lot to take in. But story-wise, we're following him kind of in the wake of coming out. He's a baby gay. He's navigating sex and love and relationships, friends, family, lovers. Toe sucking within five minutes; it's a bit wild.

Elamin: Within five minutes flat.

Sarah-Tai: It feels very The Curse-adjacent.

Elamin: The Nathan Fielder show that came out a few months ago.

Sarah-Tai: Yeah. Not in subject matter, but he's playing really similarly with that line between performance and vulnerability, and how awkwardness and comedy are different in those ways. As we see the show go on, he's also using the show to reveal parts of himself to his friends and family that he doesn't actually want to do the difficult work of doing it in person with them. It's very fresh. It's very complicated…. It really made me think. I'm very rarely looking forward to the thinkpiece industrial complex, but I'm looking forward to whoever can point this one down with a lot of clarity.

Elamin: This show is trying to do a lot of things. It's trying to complicate not just Jerrod's relationship, but our relationship to the camera and what we trust in terms of what gets put on the camera. Sometimes that makes us feel complicit. Sometimes it makes us feel uncomfortable. Sometimes it makes us feel like, "Oh, I get to judge you because you put this on camera," and he's playing with all those dynamics.

WATCH | Jerrod Carmichael & Tyler, the Creator Talk Feelings on Jerrod Carmichael Reality Show:

Jackson, I want to talk about how Jerrod wants to have the most awkward conversations with his friends because he doesn't want a moment that isn't real. There is a scene in the very first episode where he's talking to his best friend, Tyler, The Creator, and he's confessing his feelings for him. One of the reasons this scene has gone viral is because it's unprecedented for two guys of the hip-hop generation to be talking about their feelings on TV like this, but also there's a lot more going on here. I felt like I wanted to die watching this scene, just watching Jerrod's face. What did you think of that scene?

Jackson: I think the reason people are talking about it so much is because it's kind of like a hot-take machine. There's so many elements of this that we can use to therapize ourselves. Tyler has come out as bisexual, but still you don't normally see two guys associated with hip-hop talking about romantic feelings to one another. Like I am gay, I'm Black. The first 20 years of my life was just having attractions to people that I could not talk out loud about. So there's the idea of how limerence — the feeling of loving someone and not loving you back — is a very, very difficult thing to deal with.

But the idea of Truman Show-ing yourself, and then forcing somebody else to be Truman Show-ed with you, probably kind of against their will, is really gross….  When you have a crush on somebody, it can suck — especially if you're gay, there's that whole place to navigate, and we're coming into a new space where you can talk about your feelings — but it's not the person you have a crush on's responsibility to steward and shepherd your own emotions. And in this occasion, Jerrod is not only forcing him to engage with this crush that Tyler obviously is not cool with, but doing it in person on a reality TV show that's told from the perspective of Jerrod. Not coming off as an evil person is really tough, and I just don't like the dynamics. It's bad.

Elamin: The thing that you don't like about it is the thing that I like about it. I hate to say. The very presence of the camera, and everyone's awareness of the presence of the camera, distorts the amount of emotions that are happening. And I think that's the thing that makes it work.

Rad, Jerrod says, "I'm trying to let the cameras be what God is." The issue of control is interesting. How much control do you think Jerrod is ever going to have over what we're actually seeing on screen? Because he's giving us the illusion that he doesn't have any at all.

Rad: This is so hard to pinpoint because, of course, that scene is supposed to indicate the power games that could play in the background. And ultimately he has control of the edit…. But when you look at Jerrod, he has control, but I wonder how much he really exerts his control, right? And I think at this point you have to ask yourself, is this guy really good at performing the awkwardness and performing the casualness of it all?... Is he really choosing chaos like that, or is he really good at performing it? And I choose to believe that he's choosing chaos.

You can listen to the full discussion from today's show on CBC Listen or on our podcast, Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud, available wherever you get your podcasts.

Panel produced by Jean Kim.