This is why I watch almost zero teevee..

Started by AllPurposeAtheist, June 10, 2015, 01:38:01 AM

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AllPurposeAtheist

QuoteLast week, CBS premiered The Briefcase, a new reality program created by David Broome, who also produces The Biggest Loser. In contrast to participants on other hit reality shows, people in The Briefcase aren't competing for an all-expenses-paid honeymoon prize or the opportunity to work as head chef at a world-renowned restaurant. Rather, struggling families are presented with a briefcase filled with $101,000 cash, enough to lift them out of their current economic hardship so that they are no longer living paycheck to paycheck.

But the "life-altering sum of money," as Broome puts it, is not offered without a stipulation: The Briefcase then callously calls on these families to determine whether they are willing to share the cash prize with another family that is judged to be in equal or greater need. The briefcase recipients are presented with information about the other family's hardships in order to determine whether they are more deserving of the cash, or at least some portion of it. Then there is a face-to-face meeting between the families where it is revealed if and how the money will be divvied up, andâ€"wait for itâ€"that both families had actually been given the cash-filled briefcases and told to decide who was more deserving of the dough.

In effect, The Briefcase pits one family's financial hardship against that of another, pushing families on the brink to "prove themselves" worthy of the cash assistance.

Asking families to determine who among them is experiencing the "most need" or is the "most deserving" is an impossible choice, one that no family should have to make. In 2006, leading up to the collapse of the auto industry, the automotive-parts factory where my father worked appeared certain to close. I distinctly remember the overwhelming anxiety and looming uncertainty about my family's economic future that I felt at 16 years old: I began to question if we would lose our house, if I would be able to attend college, or if our family would be able to weather an unexpected medical emergency should my father lose his job.

Feeling utterly hopeless, I prayed that another plant would be closed instead of my father's plant. Ultimately, my father's factory remained open, but others nearby were shutdown.

At the time, I believed my prayers were in the best interest of my family's short-term security and long-term stability. My parents worked hard to provide for us and played by the rules; hadn't we earned the right to be economically secure? In hindsight, I was, in effect, making the same judgment call that families in The Briefcase are asked to make: to determine whether the very real struggles and economic hardships of their own family supersede the dire financial circumstances of another family.

When I first learned about the premise of The Briefcase, I immediately thought of those workers whose families were supported by the automotive industry until they received that pink slip. More specifically, I think of their children, who, like me, may have also prayed for the security of their parents' or caregivers' jobs but whose lives were upheaved.

Pitting struggling Americans against one another is nothing new in the United States; the distinction between the so-called "undeserving poor" versus the "deserving poor" has long dictated policy debates on how to most effectively address poverty in America. What's more, the pitting of struggling Americans against one another is reinforced by our current economic policy and budget debates.

At the federal level, we see struggling Americans pitted against one another through draconian, self-inflicted budget caps that pit critical domestic spending prioritiesâ€"such as job-training programs, affordable housing, and school fundingâ€"against one another. At the state level, we see lawmakers categorizing the "deserving poor" and the "undeserving poor" by passing measures such as mandatory drug testing and work requirements for people who need cash assistance. Further, we make struggling families jump through hoops that aren't required of other people who receive government assistance.

Rather than dedicate attention to television programming that perpetuates damaging stereotypes of the "deserving poor," the American public should devote its collective conscious to supporting policies that would lift these families out of economic hardship. Policies like increasing the federal minimum wage, enacting paid sick days legislation, expanding Medicaid in all states, investing in high quality preschool programs, and reining in America's skyrocketing college tuition costs are just some of the many ways we can help elevate struggling American families. Maybe then these families wouldn't need to resort to the exploitive parameters of CBS's newest primetime addition.

In its promotional video, The Briefcase rightly points out that "across America, hardworking middle-class families are feeling the impact of rising debt and shrinking paychecks." But by exploiting the very real and painful struggle that accompanies financial hardship, The Briefcase does a disservice to America's working- and middle-class families by billing their suffering as primetime "entertainment."
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Munch

I don't watch tv anymore either, except for news and weather. All my entertainment comes from YouTube subscriptions. I could easily live without a tv licence, but not the net.
'Political correctness is fascism pretending to be manners' - George Carlin

Valigarmander


drunkenshoe

They Shoot Horses, Don't They? However, this is a new level of reality show disgusting. It's fucking 'evil'.  I bet the 'creative' person who came up with the 'idea' is proud of himself. 

There aren't many good things from my perspective to say about the society I live in, but I can say one thing that these kind of shows, actually generally the reality shows -more complicated than survivor- didn't hold here. At least not yet. To my surprise I should add. They even shut down one about 'fashion' which young women came dressed up to compete (whatever that means) and messed up with each other in bitter verbal quarrels. Of course, they made the same show the next day just by changing its name, but at least they had to change the general attitude of the competitors. However, that control unfortunately works for anything that is deemed against the society's 'main culture' and 'values' (works the same way with blasphemy in theory) so comes back more often as censorship than some reasonable control.

There should be a way to moderate this bullshit around the world. It shouldn't be chalked up to 'well, people consent to participate and others have the freedom to make any show they like'. This is not freedom.

"science is not about building a body of known 'facts'. ıt is a method for asking awkward questions and subjecting them to a reality-check, thus avoiding the human tendency to believe whatever makes us feel good." - tp

trdsf

I genuinely felt a little nauseous reading that.
"My faith in the Constitution is whole, it is complete, it is total, and I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution." -- Barbara Jordan

SGOS

Quoteandâ€"wait for itâ€"that both families had actually been given the cash-filled briefcases and told to decide who was more deserving of the dough.

So all the shows must have now been taped.  Otherwise giving both families a briefcase doesn't really add anything to the dilemma.  It's just an added wrinkle to make the whole project a bit more silly. 

I've been without TV for about 4 years.  I'm not sure anymore.  I never wrote down the date when I cut the cable.  I remember having a bit of trepidation about it.  I am the only person I actually know in real life who has opted out, so I didn't have anyone to ask what it was like.  I wondered at the time, "What happens when I don't have TV anymore?  Will I suffer unexpected consequences?  Will there be a period of withdrawal?  It turns out none of those things bothered me.  It was more like someone had given me a gift of peace and quiet.

After I cut the cable, a guy I knew said I was his hero, so he cut his cable.  But he reconnected a week later.  Some people need the extra chaos in the background.  There are some good things on TV, but anything that is that good, can be gotten from a source like Netflicks and you won't have to watch the commercials.  You have to wait, but I can wait.

It's not really about the money, although I think that the near $100 a month for relatively basic TV packages is outrageous.  Remember when TV was free?  Now you have to pay a huge bill just to watch the shit that they broadcast, and you still have to watch commercials too.  It's offensive, but I could rant on and on about lots of things where I'm being fucked by corporate America charging more, while delivering less.   In the end, TV programming is just too irritating for me to bother watching.  I don't want that shit in my house.  And that includes Wolf Blitzer and his "very important news, coming up later in the program, maybe after the commercial break, or maybe after 6 commercial breaks, so don't leave your TV."

I've got an idea for an art project in a museum.  A family of robots sitting on a couch watching a real TV tuned to a 24 hour news channel.  The TV would actually be on broadcasting FOX or CNN in real time.  The robots are just stationary.  They don't get up or talk to each other.  They just look at the TV.

stromboli

I watch G of T and some shows about living in Alaska and that's about it. The rest of it is crap.

Hydra009

Reality TV and TV in general are two very different things, APA.  There are still some good fictional programs, and even the occasional science/nature program.  Everything else can eat a bag of geoducks.

GSOgymrat

#8
The Briefcase reminds me of probably the worse television show ever produced called The Swan. Several women who were deemed "ugly ducklings" were given extreme makeovers, including plastic surgery, to make them more conventionally attractive. Of course many of these participants had histories of low esteem; one doesn't agree to participate in painful plastic surgery if one is happy with her appearance. They then competed to see who would be crowned The Swan, implying to the losers that despite everything they have gone through they still are not pretty enough.

Hijiri Byakuren

Yeah, I remember hearing about this on Reddit a week or two back. I've never seen the appeal of reality shows, and shit like this just further confirms why I have no faith in humanity. Well that's not true, I do have faith in humanity: I have faith that humans will always find new ways to exploits one man's misfortune for another's entertainment.

Speak when you have something to say, not when you have to say something.

Sargon The Grape - My Youtube Channel

AllPurposeAtheist

#10
Gee..I can't wait for the new hit show,  Beat Your Kids!  The last kid left alive loses..
I actually own a teevee, but I couldn't tell you the last time I actually watched anything being broadcast over the air. I do watch Netflix,  but that's pretty much it.. Well,  a bit of YouTube. . Total time I spend in front of the teevee, about an hour a week at most. .maybe 2 hours if it's a good movie. .
All hail my new signature!

Admit it. You're secretly green with envy.

TomFoolery

I believe the most appropriate term I heard relating to this show was "altruism porn." Still, it tops anything Extreme Home Makover  and Undercover Boss ever did. It's a good thing the gimmick of this show guarantees that it will only run for one season so as to limit the need for producers to find ever more sad and desperate people to pit against one another.
How can you be sure my refusal to agree with your claim a symptom of my ignorance and not yours?

trdsf

Even though I live in the states, I'd pay the BBC's license fee for online access to their shows.  The only two shows I watch anymore (QI and Doctor Who, though Doctor Who has been on thin ice for a while) come from over there, and I like to keep up with Mock the Week when I remember to.  Otherwise, I'm satisfied with my DVDs, and I don't watch those all that often either.

American TV?  Absolutely nothing I can think of that would make it worth having cable hooked up again -- the last network show I liked was 'Castle', and it wasn't good enough to make me want to hook up again.  The only channels I miss are the Golf Channel and Discovery (and Discovery mainly for Mythbusters).  Used to be a Weather Channel fan, but I get everything I need from the National Weather Service website (weather.com is more interested in feeding ads than the actual weather).  And the only reality show I ever liked was 'The Big Break' on the Golf Channel -- because the competitors had to deliver with their clubs in order to move on from one week to the next, not play mind games and politics.
"My faith in the Constitution is whole, it is complete, it is total, and I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution." -- Barbara Jordan

aitm

I only watch shows that make me laugh….so far I watch Big Bang every night..
A humans desire to live is exceeded only by their willingness to die for another. Even god cannot equal this magnificent sacrifice. No god has the right to judge them.-first tenant of the Panotheust