Le Jeu de la Mort

Le Jeu de la Mort (The Game of Death) is a French/Swiss television documentary that was broadcast by the French public television channel France 2. The documentary was presented as a social commentary on the effects of humiliation in reality television and obeying orders, and its broadcast was followed by a studio discussion on the programme.

The documentary focused on a conduction of the Milgram experiment, but with the additional factor of the popularity and influence of reality television on the general public. The experiment was performed under the guise of a television game show known as La Zone Xtrême. Volunteers were given €40 to take part as contestants in a "pilot" for the fictitious show, where they had to administer increasingly stronger electric shocks to trained actors posing as players as punishment for incorrect answers, as encouraged to do so by the host and audience. Only 16 of 80 "contestants" chose to end the game before delivering the highest voltage punishment.