The real moment of truth

Dabysan has a few interesting observations about Moment of Truth, the game show airing on a Murdoch Press network in the US and, God help us, TV2 in New Zealand.
   The good news is that this show has reached the end of its run in New Zealand as of this Friday and let’s hope it doesn’t return.
   It’s basically a game show that paints a highly negative image of United States and the decline in taste and responsibility of New Zealand television programmers. The cancellation may be a sign that the Kiwis have found some sense again (as is the return of Life on Mars and the airing of Jekyll). The only reason it ever aired, as far as I can tell, is that it must be dirt, dirt cheap.
   Dabysan wrote: ‘The show is a sure sign of the coming of the apocalypse.’ How right that is.
   On Dabysan’s blog is a clip of one of the episodes:

   That is the sum total of the show but somehow through “editing” (which means using the same footage over and over again, and having really long and repetitive previews telling TV audiences to come back after the break) it lasts the full 46 minutes (i.e. a commercial television hour).
   If it were shown in this shortened format I might not think so ill of it, but for it to occupy an hour of some viewers’ lives is daft.
   I wrote in the comments:

I can’t see the entertainment value in Moment of Truth. The contestant knows what questions will be asked so she should not be surprised. She was obviously not ashamed to reveal his or her answers to a total stranger, so why should millions of strangers be a problem? As for their loved ones, the contestant obviously has no shame to have engaged in embarrassing conduct so she shouldn’t be ashamed now. If she is potentially ashamed, she should not have gone on. I am glad this show is getting killed off after this Friday’s episode in New Zealand after a very short run.

   What I did not write is that this sort of show, displaying the lax morals of certain US citizens, is an insult to decent Americans—but it has a secondary effect. There is a very real danger that all Americans are grouped in our minds as being like those idiots on the show.
   When you see this and news about how many sexual partners a typical New York woman has had or that one in one hundred adult Americans are in jail, you begin to form a very negative image indeed: sleep around, cheat, lie, dis your parents, be unfaithful, commit crimes. Meanwhile, the American newsmedia, as broadcast internationally, play down things such as Sen. John McCain’s military record or provide us with exemplary behaviours (exceptions of US shows that do include the little-watched Real Life Heroes).
   The blogs are good in that they give voice to some normal folks—but most people are still influenced by the stereotypes and the sensationalism caused by biased editing in the old media.
   It is the same effect as the casting of Middle Eastern actors as terrorists in US shows, which groups them into a negative bunch and propagates a false stereotype.
   A second danger is that young people watching this show—I forget what time it airs in New Zealand but it is not that late—might think that such behaviour is acceptable.
   The message is: you can engage in any behaviour, from sexual deviancy to outright deception, and be rewarded for it if you have no sense of shame.
   I can think of a few people already who act this way and am delighted at the distance I have from them.
   It is not dissimilar to some reality TV shows which show that connivance and arrogance are the keys to winning major cash prizes.
   The world simply does not work this way, and if it ever came to that, then civilization is in deep, deep crap.
   When some people point out conspiracy theories about Communists seizing the media, promoting a value-destroying ideology and showing that emotionally harmful behaviours are normal, it’s easy to laugh at them. Then you see just what the media are propagating and you have to really think: jeez, they have a point, regardless of what Snopes might say.
   It might not be Commies doing the dirty work, as some citizens are quite happy to go down a destructive path, exhibiting behaviours that every experience tells them is bad. There are enough of us whose lives have been rendered so valueless by our own governments or corporations that Schadenfreude pushes us to enjoy seeing others’ shame and controversy.
   A good society, a decent, honest, progressive one, would never have the time or inclination to indulge in shows such as Moment of Truth or, for that matter, gossip tabloids that depend on a declining society for their success.