Reporting from New York and Los Angeles — Even by reality television standards, the showdown in the Season 1 finale of "The Real Housewives of New Jersey" was epic: A furious Teresa Giudice screamed at fellow cast member Danielle Staub that she was a "prostitution whore," then yanked a table into the air, sending dishes crashing to the ground.
Watching the drama were Staub's noticeably alarmed daughters, then 11 and 15, whose mother had kept them in the room for the exchange.
New Jersey prohibits minors from appearing in entertainment productions dangerous to their "life, limb, health or morals." But the state could not say whether the "Housewives"
series was subject to its child labor laws.
A public records investigation by The Times found that dozens of kids are appearing on reality programs without legal safeguards because of widespread uncertainty about how to classify the shows. In its examination of some of the most visible series featuring children under 16, The Times found that a majority had not obtained work permits to employ minors — including TLC's "19 Kids and Counting," WE tv's "Raising Sextuplets" and the entire "Real Housewives" franchise on Bravo.
In all, The Times found that 11 shows filming in eight states had not filed paperwork to hire minors. Regulators in California, Florida, Georgia and Virginia are now looking into whether production companies violated child labor rules.
But they may be in the clear legally.
The confusion over what laws apply to reality television befits a genre that occupies a gray zone. A hybrid of docu-style filmmaking and dramatic storytelling, reality shows have exploded in popularity in the last decade, raising a host of ethical questions along the way. The latest wave of shows centered on kids alarms child psychologists. But there are few government safeguards in place to monitor these productions.
Because producers say reality show kids are participants in documentary-style programs and not employees, child labor laws are rarely applied. And because these productions have largely resisted unionization, they do not have to comply with guild rules set up to protect child performers.
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