Mini-series of six episodes, available Friday October 18 on Prime Video, the Amazon platform, Worship returns in particular to the creation of Loft Storythe reality TV show in which anonymous people were locked up for 70 days under the eye of the cameras, a real audiovisual and societal turning point. Hence the choice of title Worship for the series. Loft Story remains, 23 years after its launch, a television marker: there is a before and an after.
Avant Loft Storyno French channel dared to go into this field of reality TV, which was nevertheless a hit in the Netherlands with the show Big Brother. TF1 and M6, the two private antennas, had undertaken to never program this type of format, and the question did not even arise for the public service. Except that in secret, TF1 and M6 will fight to win the rights to what would become Loft Story. And it is M6, the small channel that is going up, which will win the bet.
It is April 26, 2001, France discovers the faces of eleven young people, totally unknown, single, from diverse backgrounds. It’s supposed to be a societal study, the portrait of a generation, with a candidate who immediately stands out from the crowd: Loana. The young woman is 23 years old, she has been a gogo dancer for five years. “I convey a certain image: tall, blonde, sexy. I work in a nightclub, so glitter, quite naked, I’m in a thong and a bra. But in fact, I’m very introverted, shy, reserved”she described herself at the time.
Loana will become THE character of Loft Storyespecially because of the famous swimming pool scene, in which she makes love with another loft builder, Jean-Édouard. That’s what really started the program. Audiences soared after this passage, which was not broadcast on M6, but on the channel specially created on satellite to broadcast images from the loft live 24 hours a day. The sequence circulated on the internet, c went viral, like the beginnings of what we know today with social networks.
From there, seven million viewers watch Thursday prime time on M6 every week, almost 40% market share, with a peak of almost twelve million on the evening of the final. Scores worthy of a match by the French football team during a World Cup.
The French are passionate about Loft Story. Despite content that doesn’t fly very high. The show will then cut France in two: the pros, who see a sociological interest in it, and the antis, who criticize the voyeurism and stupidity of such a show. We then discover the term “trash TV”, used in particular by the CEO of TF1, who was in reality furious that this success was not on his channel. The whole press seizes it: Le Monde, Libération, Le Parisien make some. Associations are violently stepping up to the plate. Reports show, for example, demonstrators dumping trash cans in Neuilly, in front of the M6 headquarters, to protest against this program and then going to Plaine-Saint-Denis, in front of the famous loft, to try to introduce it.
The protests go much further than demonstrations, as Benjamin Castaldi tells us, the only one to have agreed to present Loft Story in its beginnings. “The only thing that hasn’t been fun for everyone working on the program is the number of threats, including death threats, says the host. I received disgusting items: used condoms, used sanitary napkins and coffins with a bullet in themsays the host. So that was the least funny part.”
“I had 24-hour protection. That wasn’t cool.”
Benjamin Castaldiat franceinfo
With hindsight, the host absolutely does not judge the show as trashy. For him, the protagonists were “care bears”, “they were normal people”. “This show showed parents and grandparents how their children lived and that’s why the program worked, because it was a mirror of society”analysis Benjamin Castaldi.
The phenomenon has grown so much that politicians have gotten involved. But few have openly criticized the program. From Ségolène Royal to Nicolas Sarkozy, they are not necessarily fans, but refuse to speak ill of a program adored by 15-24 year olds. For example, Philippe Séguin, former president of the National Assembly, admits to watching it. He dares this comparison: “To decide between Aziz and Jean-Édouard, there were four million voters. Almost as many as for the referendum on the five-year term.”
The candidates have become stars. There will be a season 2, but already the naivety and spontaneity of the participants have disappeared. Reality TV has become professionalized in the blink of an eye and has multiplied: Secret Story, Temptation Island, The Angels, The Marseillais… Much less nice indeed than a furtive sex scene in a swimming pool.
