Trust me, I'm a celebrity
Don't get excited now, just a little thought.
Last night I caught the second half of a special by that Derren Brown mind control freak*. The show, Heist, involved trying to lead a bunch of otherwise upstanding citizens to commit armed robbery. (Without, obviously, doing anything so crass as saying so; the idea was supposed to come from their own minds.) The guinea pigs were carefully picked from a bunch who responded to an ad for a "character building seminar" and then manipulated. One of the selection phases was a reconstruction of the infamous Milgram experiment: are they willing to administer potentially lethal electric shocks to an innocent victim, just because an authority figure rather unconvincingly tells them it's okay?
Like much of Derren Brown's oeuvre, this show was distinctly creepy. Three out of the four participants did attempt the robbery, and the fourth obviously thought about it. One of those who did — when caught by the camera crew and good old Derren, and realising it was a hoax — seemed to have quite a strong reaction. "You bastard!" he managed to say. In a friendly sort of way, of course, because it would be bad form to get upset on telly, right? The four were then taken to a nice calm white tent and "de-programmed of all their temporary criminal inclinations". How comforting.
The show ended with assertions, in text and voice-over, that all four were quite happy with their part in the show, once-in-a-lifetime experience, ra-ra, great stuff, feel so powerful, very happy thanks Derren.
So my question is: is the television screen/Great Meedja Personality just another version of the guy in a white coat telling us all is fine? It's okay to press the button, or to tune into exploitative television that could have serious ramifications for these people's future lives, because, um, the screen says they're fine really?
It might be painful, but it's not harmful, right? Er, what do I mean by "harmful", er... no lasting harm is done. No, really. You know they're fine, because I said so.
_____
* How does he make out with the laydeez, do you think? On the one hand, surely all right thinking women would run a mile from anyone with such apparently inhuman access to their brains. On the other, well, he has apparently inhuman access to their brains, and could thus get anyone he fancied to do whatever he fancied. Discuss.
3 comments:
Per more research no one like to read....you are dead on, sista. Not that there's much we can do about it until every last person decides to start thinking with their watching.
Firstly, thanks for the Milgram link - ever since first year psych I've told people about his experiments and people haven't believed me. Now I can point out that they're net-documented, and therefore *must* be true. Ahem.
Secondly, you're right (yet again): this is entertainment? And sure, yeah, they're fine. I bet no one who ever zapped that recorded person to death *ever* experienced any sort of trauma afterwards. Because reading about it and watching the footage never did anything to me... except make me distrust fellow humans for weeks afterwards. After all, most of them would zap *me* if doctor-man told them to. Oh, and it gave me nightmares. But I bet the participants just happily got on with their lives. *cough cough cough*
Milgram's research was 'interesting', in that weird and sickening way, but there's a reason that standards for research have (supposedly) changed - we're better and more humane humans now, right? Right? Now we just put this stuff on TV and call it reality.
Crauweeeeepy!
I really don't like the idea that someone can influence me to go against my moral values and make me hurt someone else. :P
[Us Sith Lords have to have our standards!]
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