Now that The Rehearsal’s six-episode run is over — with more, semi-improbably, given HBO’s troubles, en route — we can finally wrestle with the big questions. Is what creator/star Nathan Fielder did ethical? Do the randos who appeared on the show — and sometimes exposed some of their dodgiest qualities — bear some responsibility for what they allowed cameras to pick up? Is hoped-for-mommy Angela Sankovich right and it’s bad for a kid to call himself “Dr. Fart”? Whatever the case, an already thorny show just got thornier, as a bunch of its participants are now trying to make money on Cameo.
This was caught by The A.V. Club, who noticed that when you search the celebrity messaging service for “Nathan Fielder,” you don’t get Fielder himself, who’s probably still busy with that group of young TikTok dancers. But you do get Angela, who will record a birthday greeting or what-have-you for a mere $140. You can get Robbin Stone, the ultra-religious numbers fanatic who believed his roommate was possessed or at least had a demon, for a third of that, namely $46.
Elsewhere on the service, you can enlist arguably the show’s nicest participant, Kor Skeete, the bar quiz enthusiast stressing over a very minor lie, for a steal at $50. You can even get Miriam Eskenasy, the cantor and educator who pushes back at Angela’s, uh, interesting take on Judaism, only to reveal her, uh, very strong thoughts about Israel.
Like Nathan for You, The Rehearsal purposefully blurs the line separating fact from fiction, questioning who’s really exploiting who. The sudden avalanche of Rehearsal figures, even controversial ones, suddenly trying to make a couple bucks on the same place where you can get Brian Cox to swear at you for about 700 clams, only makes the whole affair more questionable and fascinating. What a show!
(Via The A.V. Club)