Who Wants To Be A Millionnaire? - game shows & subliminal me

[suffianr]

This is purely a rant, but I think that game shows, being game shows, are evolving into nothing more than lame excuses to support capitalism. I mean, watch any game show you see nowadays, and what's the reward? A million bucks. A car. Free furniture. Some fucking chinaware.

Whilst the entertainment quotient of game shows cannot be measured by unconventional means (high ratings does not always equal high entertainment value), most game shows are used to send stupid subliminal messages to viewers like: "There's nothing more important to you than money!" or "Go live on a deserted shithole and you'll prove your humanitarian qualities" or "Your luck determines everything!". I'm ranting.

But look at it this way, contestants undoubtedly aspire to economic wealth, and the value of money always rises, we always need more, we always want more, and we can do this by humiliating ourselves on shows like "Who Wants To Be A Millionnaire", where I didn't know that people with low I.Q.'s and no common sense were apparently immune to the sickening glare of stage lights, or that some people cannot spell properly until you tell them about the Hawaii. That sort of shit.

It's all about expounding the merits of the capitalist system, it's about encouraging people to feel comforatable with being greedy for material wealth, placing it high above other virtues. Yes, even Buddhism permits the pursuit of earthly pleasures and material fulfilment, but that's not the catch.

Yes, money is good. Life is good. Everyone loves you when you're rich. Come on, there's got to be more to life, eh? :)

[Xvall]

Let's not forget 'Family Feud'; the game of conformity.

[Edelweiss]

A few months ago, at the German version of "Who wants to be a millionaire?", the question for getting the one million Euro was "With which sentence does the commnunist manifesto begin - "A spectre is haunting Europe -- the spectre of ...".

- capitalism
- communism
- feudalism
- (forgot the forth one)

When you haven't read the manifesto, it's a tricky question...And of course the canditate fucked it up! :)

[Moskitto]

on british TV, they ran a game show over the millenium which was for charity and the eventual winner won a year off work (about £20,000) and the rest of the money went to charity. I can't remember what it was though.

Magnus Magnusson (former presenter of Master Mind) said that the selection system used in who wants to be a millionairre is such that anyone who has a chance of winning is unlikely to get into the competition and most who do make it are likely to be knocked out in the earlier rounds because of the questions.

[kidicarus20]

Heh. That's pretty cool malte.

My favorite question on who wants to be a millionaire over here is " In the 2000 election, which cadidate came in third place with 2.8 million votes"

The contestant started talk ing about how pat buchanon got illegal votes or something and he/she was about to say buchanon but then he/she polled the audience and they went for nader.

It's not as cool as the communist manifesto question, but it's about as good of question an american gameshow can get.
When i saw it i was like "yah nader is cool "


Gameshows are obviously a result of capitalism, mindless entertainment for a profit.

Whats interesting about capitalism though is it sort of markets everything liberally, as if we're all liberals, how you can "trust" the company, a lot of companies here play into human compassion, if everybody was greedy like capitalists say they are theyd just promote something as "buy this from me, we're the BEST, period." Wal-mart markets itself as a mom and pop type store, who is friendly to the environment, they even have a whole section dedicated to it at their webpage. That's capitalism though, there are lies behind it. It's an argument against capitalim if anything, companies set-up a fascade of being friendly and compassionate but there is really greed behind it, if greedy were the true prodominant human nature, they shouldn't even have to do that.