No joke: TV reality shows cross the line into humiliation
Roman Kap, Contributor, Jakarta
When Monday night comes around, millions of people the world over end the first day of the week as wide-eyed blobs of protoplasm who wrap themselves around their couches in front of the lighted magic box, ready for a night filled with soaps, sitcoms and chuckle-inducing game shows.
Our family is no different and it is only on Monday nights when the never-ending remote control war settles into a mutual cease-fire.
Cable channels have a selection of comedies, and on a local station there is Candid Camera, a program where unsuspecting members of the public are subjected to a shocking but manipulated and harmless series of events, their reactions closely manned by hidden cameras. Funny and imaginative situations are manipulated to scare, shock, perplex the public, toy with their sense of reason. By and large, if it does not elicit an explosive guffaw it definitely succeeds at a jocular titter.
MTV has its own young, ultrahip version, Punk'd, with a local variation also on TV. Detailed arrangements are made to fool people. The journey to the culmination of the practical joke is just as funny as the climax itself as the audience is in on the joke. Meticulous preparations are made just to film the split second facial expression of momentary panic, shock and instant reflex.
On a recent Monday night, as our remote slipped on to a local channel during a bout of channel surfing, we unwittingly watched a twisted version of the above two shows.
The program made me sit up, not because of belly-cramping laughter but heart-stopping disgust at the gross violation of human dignity under the cloak of professional television tomfoolery.
As usual, a situation is created with the crew members posing as part of the public who are about to be duped. This time it was on a mikrolet (public transporatation minivan).
The camera hidden in the passenger section of the van records the "victims" getting onto the vehicle. They are a young girl and a couple, the woman in a headscarf. A couple of scenes later the camera shows a policeman, also in on the act, who stops the van and shows the passengers photographs of a couple of hoodlums who are known to hang around the vicinity and rob passengers.
Until now it was quite funny. The van goes on its way and we brace with anticipation for the predicted surprise of the thugs appearing, one of the crew recognizing them and pointing them out, the predicted shocked reaction of the innocent people in the van and it all ending in a big laugh.
But as the nighttime scenario unfolded (too slowly to hold any impact) it was quite clear that it was not only badly directed but not funny at all. The appearance of the robbers was met with no reaction of fear but absolute terror. The drawn out scene was so sickening to watch, we wondered how the victims got through it.
While the young girl lowered her head and answered the men's questions politely, the woman with the headscarf clung desperately to the man with her, hiding her face while sobbing copiously.
The horror that had been created should have been brief, but it was not. The sight of the woman's terror seemed to spur the team on. The van was driven to an isolated location, as the subtitles informed us. The van was halted and the victims told to cower on their haunches in front of a closed shop.
They huddled together as the two robbers pointed guns to their heads and demanded their valuables. While not actually robbing them, the two hefty thugs repeatedly threatened to shoot them if they told anyone about the incident or made any movement.
After another heart-wrenchingly long period of time, the crew decided to disclose their identity and end the "fun". With a maniacal laugh, one of them plonked himself down next to the young girl. She looked up in confusion and fell back in a dead faint.
It was a reality show gone so wrong, but the camera seemed undeterred and continued filming. At this point of time we hoped that at least the other couple would see the joke and laugh about it. This would save the show and justify the madness to some extent, but when the woman was informed it was only a stunt, she broke down and cried.
It was as if she had actually been robbed of her dignity even if her valuables were intact. The tense, harshly etched face of the man with her as he tried to smile through his tears remains in mind.
It was clear they had not seen the joke and nor would any sensible, compassionate viewers -- only the crew seemed to enjoy their sadistic venture.
The whole incident was so brimming in bad taste that it remained the topic of discussion over dinner the next night when we related it to our friends.
"But why didn't they switch off the camera or cut the scene when the young girl fainted?" asked someone.
"Perhaps that was their cheese on the pizza," replied a disgusted friend. "They felt the fainting would give their show a good edge."
I stopped chewing my food at the revelation. Is human suffering so common, cheap and boring a fact now in this country that it is used in a joke?
The show we watched is not alone; friends tell of seeing ones where a hotel bellboy is accused of stealing an expensive computer from a guest, and another where a teenage girl visiting a mall is "found" to have syringes in her bag, taken to the security office and then grilled on her "drug habit" until she cannot take it anymore and breaks down.
In a country where accused criminals are summarily dealt with in "street justice", is the man and woman in the street so used to being repressed and violated that they are no longer capable of feeling anger to someone who abuses their sense of being?
The couple just stood there crying -- there was no anger, no verbal combat for the injustice they had suffered for the last half hour. Perhaps they were scared of being called "bad sports".
In a country where there are bad counterfeits made of everything, from handbags and clothes to DVDs, can airing a show like this be called gross social injustice, or would it just pass as a sorry attempt to copy of more sophisticated comedy shows?