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Cruelest Game Show on TV
I turned on the TV last night right in the middle of a game show I'd never seen before, and I kept it on long enough to get the gist of it. I wish I hadn't.
A woman in her pajamas and a big, burlypro wrestler game show host were standing in a driveway. Behind them was a car about to be towed. He was asking her trivia questions. I laughed when she didn't know the name of the Shakespeare play that character "Lady Macbeth" was in. But then, because she'd missed that question and some preceding ones, he towed the car away.
"OK," I thought. "Maybe she was trying to win the car but failed." Then I learned the title of show, Repo Games, and I started to get a very bad feeling.
The game show crew then went to the home of couple who were due to have both of their cars repossessed.
They started with the car of the young woman. She was crying and upset the moment she saw the tow truck, explaining that she knew she was behind on her car payments, but that she'd just gotten a new job and would be able to pay soon. She didn't say, but I was willing to bet that losing the car would interfere with getting to that new job.
Big burly guy (BBG) calmed her enough to explain that he was going to ask her five trivia questions. If she got three right, she could keep her car. Then he asked if she wanted to play.
"I don't have much choice, do I?" she replied. And no, she didn't.
She missed two of the first three questions, but I couldn't laugh at her lack of knowledge they way I'd done with pajama woman, the way I'd done before I knew what was at stake.
He next asked her to name the actors who played the four main characters on Seinfeld. She hadn't watched the show; she didn't know. BBG is encouraging her to guess while she's standing there with tears running down her face, trying not to completely lose it, knowing that she's about to lose her car.
BBG says, "You've got to try. Don't you know what's at stake?"
Yeah, Dude, she does.
He then tells her that her answer (she'd guessed at two actor's names, but then given up) was wrong. He then proceeds to tell her the correct answer. Dude! Do you really think she cares? Your buddies are repossessing her car, and you're telling her that it's Julia Louis Dreyfus instead of Louise Dreyfus.
He then tells her to send her fiance out of the house, because his car is next. I turned the TV off.
I can understand that sometimes people fall behind in paying for things that they've purchased, and that the lender has a right to repossess items like cars when they haven't been paid. As much sympathy as I have for the borrower on hard times, I have equal sympathy for the person who made a loan in good faith but who hasn't been paid back. And it's got to be a difficult job to be the person sent to repossess the item.
But this... Making a game out of it? Making people's unhappiness into entertainment? Sick.
What's next TV? Running Man?
A woman in her pajamas and a big, burly
"OK," I thought. "Maybe she was trying to win the car but failed." Then I learned the title of show, Repo Games, and I started to get a very bad feeling.
The game show crew then went to the home of couple who were due to have both of their cars repossessed.
They started with the car of the young woman. She was crying and upset the moment she saw the tow truck, explaining that she knew she was behind on her car payments, but that she'd just gotten a new job and would be able to pay soon. She didn't say, but I was willing to bet that losing the car would interfere with getting to that new job.
Big burly guy (BBG) calmed her enough to explain that he was going to ask her five trivia questions. If she got three right, she could keep her car. Then he asked if she wanted to play.
"I don't have much choice, do I?" she replied. And no, she didn't.
She missed two of the first three questions, but I couldn't laugh at her lack of knowledge they way I'd done with pajama woman, the way I'd done before I knew what was at stake.
He next asked her to name the actors who played the four main characters on Seinfeld. She hadn't watched the show; she didn't know. BBG is encouraging her to guess while she's standing there with tears running down her face, trying not to completely lose it, knowing that she's about to lose her car.
BBG says, "You've got to try. Don't you know what's at stake?"
Yeah, Dude, she does.
He then tells her that her answer (she'd guessed at two actor's names, but then given up) was wrong. He then proceeds to tell her the correct answer. Dude! Do you really think she cares? Your buddies are repossessing her car, and you're telling her that it's Julia Louis Dreyfus instead of Louise Dreyfus.
He then tells her to send her fiance out of the house, because his car is next. I turned the TV off.
I can understand that sometimes people fall behind in paying for things that they've purchased, and that the lender has a right to repossess items like cars when they haven't been paid. As much sympathy as I have for the borrower on hard times, I have equal sympathy for the person who made a loan in good faith but who hasn't been paid back. And it's got to be a difficult job to be the person sent to repossess the item.
But this... Making a game out of it? Making people's unhappiness into entertainment? Sick.
What's next TV? Running Man?
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