Although Nathan Fielder has mostly moved on to his latest bizarre blend of provocation and in-depth human investigation—in this case, his upcoming Elizabeth Holmes documentary You Can See Everything, co-directed with Lance Oppenheim—his influence on the world of American aviation policy continues to linger. (A true statement that we assure you felt just as weird to type out as it did to read.) Per The Hill, the Senate passed two bills on Thursday relating to the difficulties of pilots receiving mental health treatment without risking losing their certification—legislation Fielder has previously said he’d been told started moving forward, in a serious way, after the HBO show’s second season, fixated on that same topic, aired.
For those who don’t remember, season two of The Rehearsal was a multi-episode look at pilot mental health, as Fielder explored a personal obsession with a phenomenon where planes crashed because co-pilots refused to speak up in moments where their pilots were doing something ill-advised or dangerous in the cockpit. An attempt to correct these literally lethal bouts of self-consciousness blossomed out, in Fielder’s typical style, into avenues that were deliberately absurd—including the never-to-be-forgotten image of Fielder pretending to be a nursing Sully Sullenberger—but also had actual import to them, shedding light on the fact that FAA regulations around mental health often lead pilots not to disclose that they need help.
And while Fielder never got his dream of actually testifying before Congress, he did note in an interview back in August that one of these two pieces of legislation—now known as the John A. Hauser Mental Health In Aviation Act, named for an aviation student who took his own life back in 2021—had been stalled in the House for years before the show aired. Fielder says former National Transportation Safety Board John Goglia (who appears prominently in The Rehearsal) told him that the show may have genuinely helped move the conversation on the bill forward: “He was talking to the young staffers, and he said, ‘I think the show pushed them to [do it]’. I guess the young people make all the decisions. He’s like, ‘That’s how it works’. Anyway, I don’t know if it did anything, but it was nice to hear.”
The first of the two bills that was passed this week attempts to lift stigmas around pilots and mental health, including allocating funding for more mental health examiners and mental health training. The second clarifies for pilots and their medical providers which specific medications (and specifically those prescribed for mental health) are banned for pilots who want to fly. Both bills passed the Senate with unanimous support.
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