Moment of Truth

I watched Fox TV’s “game show” and hit “Moment of Truth” a few nights ago and I think it had clearly crossed the line of good taste.

On the surface, it raised the basic questions of how much will someone be willing to be humiliated and had ones’ relationships with loved ones harmed in order to have a chance to win some prize money? I think Washington Post’s Lisa de Moraes said it well, as I think the water pressure should have plunged as “people leapt into showers to clean off the filth after watching … The Moment of Truth“. And blogger Jordon J. Ballor has this insightful observation (emphasis added),

“But I want to pay special attention to the contestants’ motivations. They are essentially willing to air any and all secrets (what used to be called “dirty laundry”) to the public in exchange for money (or merely the chance to win money, depending on their success). That people are actually eager to get on the show as a contestant speaks to how little they truly value and are willing to “monetize” their personal relationships.“

Here is a sample clip (with 290,000+ views),

With an “update” of what happened to this particular “contestant” afterwards,

What I want to explore more are the consequences, unintended consequences, and enabling factors for a show like this to be on TV.

Consequences

Based on the one show and some YouTube clips that I’ve watched, I think it is pretty obvious that the relationships between the contestants and their family members, spouses, closed friends were deliberately designed to be damaged for our “entertainment”.

Unintended consequences

1. Some viewers may now view lie detector as a more authoritative tool than it deserves.
2. TV shows like this will undoubtedly push the boundary of “acceptable good taste” further out. If this show is “acceptable“, what’s next for the TV producers to try?
3. Our willingness to see the actual suffering and break down of relationships of fellow human beings as a form of “entertainment”. Seeing others being put through emotional torture as entertainment? Have our own moral judgment been impaired so badly that we can’t tell right from wrong?

Enabling factors

1. Put yourself in the shoes of the producers of this “game show” for a moment. The 50 questions being asked by the producers ahead of time have been designed to create maximum embarrassment to the contestants to create shock value and “entertainment” for the viewers.
2. And then the show producers have to pick and arrange the questions and sometimes invite extra guest, to the taping of the show, to embarrass the contestants and to shock the viewers to create drama and “entertainment”.
3. Ultimately, for a show like this to continue production, people have to keep watching and advertisers have to keep buying air time.
4. Do TV producers have mortal obligations to audiences? Or can they pretty much put up any shows that advertisers will pay money to put up ads for an audiences?

Not too long ago Jim Carrey made a movie call “The Truman Show” (now a classic). Here is an excerpt of the Plot (emphasis added),

The film is set in a hypothetical world, called Seahaven, where an entire town is dedicated to a continually running television show. All but one of the participants are actors. Only the central character, Truman Burbank (Carrey), is unaware that he lives in a constructed reality for the entertainment of those outside. The film follows his discovery of his situation and his attempts to escape. On the surface level, it criticizes greed, portraying people who would do anything for fame and money. Central characters fake friendship to Truman, and in the case of his “wife”, bury their real feelings of disgust.

One may ask, what kind of society will allow a baby be adopted by a TV production company, his relationships with everyone be lies and his whole life be transmitted as a TV show? I guess we can also ask what kind of society w

(Spoiler alert) Here is the lovely ending of “The Truman Show” to help washing off the filth of “Moment of Truth”. Enjoy.

P.S. TV Guide’s Joe Rhodes share his experience of “Sitting on the Moment of Truth’s Hot Seat”.