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Indybay Feature
Humanity Lost on CBS Executives
Jan. 7, 2003 -- In 1906 the Bronx Zoo put a tribesman from the Congo on display in a cage with an orangutan and a parrot. Though the African-American clergy in the city vehemently protested, Zoo officials and even the mayor of New York refused to stop the spectacle. Crowds filed by to see this man not as who he was, but as who he was advertised to be, a pygmy cannibal from the African jungle.
In 2003 the CBS television network will air a program called "The Real Beverly Hillbillies." In this reality series CBS will take a poor, rural family and put them on display in a Beverly Hills mansion.
They have conducted searches for this family in the Deep South, the agricultural Midwest, and the Appalachian mountains. The network's requirements are that the family should have limited education and have experienced only minimal travel.
The joke is that they will not know how to live with riches, servants, modern appliances and prepared food. Audiences are to watch and guffaw at the poor family's clumsiness and their unworldly ways.
In 2003 we do not need a careful consideration of the arguments put forth by officials in 1906 to know that placing a human being in a cage in a zoo was wrong.
Certainly in this century we understand the dehumanizing harmfulness of stereotypes and thoughtless discrimination. Further we understand that malicious stereotyping doesn't just damage the targets of derision, it also injures those who hold fast to false and harmful depictions.
The executives of CBS and of its parent company Viacom will assuredly have well-honed arguments as to why humiliating a poor, rural family fits within good business practice. They can argue free commerce or First Amendment protection. They can argue that all the networks do it, or they can even say that they are attempting to uplift a family who has been left behind.
But CBS cannot make this overt form of ridicule right. And the local CBS stations cannot make the case to the FCC that this program fits within their public service obligations to the communities they are licensed to serve.
There are 56 million rural Americans. Those of us who live in rural America are not fair game for CBS executives to contort and make sport of to line their pockets. Viacom shareholders take note.
CBS was once called the Tiffany Network. It was considered the gold standard in providing information and entertainment to America's families. Programs on CBS like Edward R. Murrow's Harvest of Shame showed the challenges real poor, rural families faced in the 1960s; that broadcast led to change that substantively bettered living conditions for hard-hit migrant farm families.
Here is what Ed Murrow said about television: "This instrument can teach, it can illuminate, and, yes, it can inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it is nothing but wires and lights in a box."
This is a lesson in business ethics and humanity lost on the current crop of CBS executives.
Dee Davis is the executive director of the Center for Rural Strategies.
They have conducted searches for this family in the Deep South, the agricultural Midwest, and the Appalachian mountains. The network's requirements are that the family should have limited education and have experienced only minimal travel.
The joke is that they will not know how to live with riches, servants, modern appliances and prepared food. Audiences are to watch and guffaw at the poor family's clumsiness and their unworldly ways.
In 2003 we do not need a careful consideration of the arguments put forth by officials in 1906 to know that placing a human being in a cage in a zoo was wrong.
Certainly in this century we understand the dehumanizing harmfulness of stereotypes and thoughtless discrimination. Further we understand that malicious stereotyping doesn't just damage the targets of derision, it also injures those who hold fast to false and harmful depictions.
The executives of CBS and of its parent company Viacom will assuredly have well-honed arguments as to why humiliating a poor, rural family fits within good business practice. They can argue free commerce or First Amendment protection. They can argue that all the networks do it, or they can even say that they are attempting to uplift a family who has been left behind.
But CBS cannot make this overt form of ridicule right. And the local CBS stations cannot make the case to the FCC that this program fits within their public service obligations to the communities they are licensed to serve.
There are 56 million rural Americans. Those of us who live in rural America are not fair game for CBS executives to contort and make sport of to line their pockets. Viacom shareholders take note.
CBS was once called the Tiffany Network. It was considered the gold standard in providing information and entertainment to America's families. Programs on CBS like Edward R. Murrow's Harvest of Shame showed the challenges real poor, rural families faced in the 1960s; that broadcast led to change that substantively bettered living conditions for hard-hit migrant farm families.
Here is what Ed Murrow said about television: "This instrument can teach, it can illuminate, and, yes, it can inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it is nothing but wires and lights in a box."
This is a lesson in business ethics and humanity lost on the current crop of CBS executives.
Dee Davis is the executive director of the Center for Rural Strategies.
For more information:
http://www.ruralstrategies.org
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it's the way they see a poor family as nothing but an object. something to be appropriated and used. like a stone, or a card board box. or like a toy puppet or a plastic doll, which they seem to want to manipulate in order to entertain an audience. it seems mean spirited.
does this offer any dignity to poor families in america? or does it just mock them and degrade them in a round about way?
isn't it almost the way black people were mocked by "black face" actors? except now it's poor people, taking part in their own mocking and degrading as the audience looks on.
why not move a rich family out of beverly hills and force them to live in a trailer home in appalachia, just to be fair? that way the idea of poor/rich is attacked, rather than just one particular class.
i don't know. if they find some poor family, maybe the family will turn it into a joke, and turn that not on themselves, but on the idea of being rich, and take advantage of CBS and the whole idea of the show. just because a family is poor in no way means they are stupid, and can't play the game to their own advantage...
does this offer any dignity to poor families in america? or does it just mock them and degrade them in a round about way?
isn't it almost the way black people were mocked by "black face" actors? except now it's poor people, taking part in their own mocking and degrading as the audience looks on.
why not move a rich family out of beverly hills and force them to live in a trailer home in appalachia, just to be fair? that way the idea of poor/rich is attacked, rather than just one particular class.
i don't know. if they find some poor family, maybe the family will turn it into a joke, and turn that not on themselves, but on the idea of being rich, and take advantage of CBS and the whole idea of the show. just because a family is poor in no way means they are stupid, and can't play the game to their own advantage...
that sounds really perverse. I mean, there are already all sorts of classist shows on TV - for instance, I have met multiple people (in college) who have been actors on Jerry Springer and if you ever look at that show, they usually portray poor people. But this is really explicitly so. It looks like it would make a good venue for making a point about it. I bet even some conservative right wing radio talk shows in rural areas might take this on. There aren't really many center or liberal talk shows, just NPR.
get a sense of humor! these people are almost certainly going to be well-compensated for their efforts, and may well be smarter--real life "smarts," not book smarts--than the suits think, and could easily turn the tables on them, making the show infinitely more enjoyable.
are we running out of victims here? who's next: persecuted dog owners living in a cats-only neighborhood? this is "political correctness" run amok.
are we running out of victims here? who's next: persecuted dog owners living in a cats-only neighborhood? this is "political correctness" run amok.
National Propaganda Radio
political correctness doesn't have shit to do with it.
it's about being straight with fellow humans.
i'd like the executives to be straight up with so and so family about their reasons for wanting so and so family to be on the air. if everyone on all sides knows it's just for fun, then cool...
if the audience knows it's a joke and a gimmick, and not in fact a "reality" show, then cool...
it's about being straight with fellow humans.
i'd like the executives to be straight up with so and so family about their reasons for wanting so and so family to be on the air. if everyone on all sides knows it's just for fun, then cool...
if the audience knows it's a joke and a gimmick, and not in fact a "reality" show, then cool...
my point is that i think everyone DOES know it's for fun, except the buffoon who started this thread.
What the hell kind of imbecillic moron has the time to watch that crap, anyway? All the stinking, asinine sit-coms, game shows, and soap operas? Now some "reality" b.s.? Screw ozone depletion, global warming, rain forests, and saving whales. This kind of non-essential / non-beneficial idiocy may be the real environmental enemy: it is killing brain cells, polluting the airwaves, and wasting electricity.
BTW - Watching a lot of TV after the age of 40 is correlated with an earlier death and increased risk of Alzheimers.
The author of this piece uses a 1903 display of a "pygmy cannibal" to try to cast aspersion on a idiotic reality show. However, do a Google search and today's news comes up with a more disturbing story about Pygmies and cannibalism - not from 1903 but from 2003. Why an intellegent person would worry about a TV show while this is going on in the world is beyond me.
UN probing reports of cannibalism of Pygmies in Congo by rebel troops
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
NAIROBI, Kenya - UN investigators have found credible evidence to support reports that Congolese rebel troops have killed and eaten pygmies in northeastern Congo, United Nations officials said Wednesday.
During the past week, UN human rights investigators have been probing reports of cannibalism in Congo's northeastern Ituri province, where forces of the rebel Congolese Liberation Movement, or MLC, and its allied Congolese Rally for Democracy-National, or RCD-N, are accused of killing and eating pygmies living in its dense tropical forests, Manodje Mounoubai, spokesman for the UN mission in Congo, said.
"The UN is taking these accusations very seriously and has sent a team of six officials to investigate the accusations and other human rights abuses in the region," Mounoubai said in a telephone interview from the Congolese capital, Kinshasa. He said he preferred to wait until the investigators had left the area before providing further information.
However, other UN officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said investigators have established that the charges are credible.
MLC and RCD-N troops often hire Pygmies to hunt food for them in the forests as they concentrate on fighting to oust the rival rebel Congolese Rally for Democracy-Liberation from mineral-rich areas of Ituri province, a UN official familiar with the probe said on condition of anonymity.
But if the expert hunters return empty-handed, rebel troops kill and eat them, the official said.
Sudi Alimasi, an official with the rebel RCD-ML, said the group began receiving reports of cannibalism more than a week ago from people displaced by fighting.
"We hear reports of MLC and RCD-N commanders feeding on sexual organs of Pygmies, apparently believing this would give them strength," Alimasi said by telephone from the Congolese capital, Kinshasa. "We also have reports of Pygmies being forces to feed on cooked remains of their colleagues."
Nearly all the foreign troops involved in the war in Congo that broke out in August 1998 have withdrawn, but fighting has intensified among the country's main rebel factions, splinter groups and tribal fighters after the pullout in the east.
http://www.canada.com/news/story.asp?id=%7B1D4EDE00-1681-479A-A7BD-2566036A9E42%7D
UN probing reports of cannibalism of Pygmies in Congo by rebel troops
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
NAIROBI, Kenya - UN investigators have found credible evidence to support reports that Congolese rebel troops have killed and eaten pygmies in northeastern Congo, United Nations officials said Wednesday.
During the past week, UN human rights investigators have been probing reports of cannibalism in Congo's northeastern Ituri province, where forces of the rebel Congolese Liberation Movement, or MLC, and its allied Congolese Rally for Democracy-National, or RCD-N, are accused of killing and eating pygmies living in its dense tropical forests, Manodje Mounoubai, spokesman for the UN mission in Congo, said.
"The UN is taking these accusations very seriously and has sent a team of six officials to investigate the accusations and other human rights abuses in the region," Mounoubai said in a telephone interview from the Congolese capital, Kinshasa. He said he preferred to wait until the investigators had left the area before providing further information.
However, other UN officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said investigators have established that the charges are credible.
MLC and RCD-N troops often hire Pygmies to hunt food for them in the forests as they concentrate on fighting to oust the rival rebel Congolese Rally for Democracy-Liberation from mineral-rich areas of Ituri province, a UN official familiar with the probe said on condition of anonymity.
But if the expert hunters return empty-handed, rebel troops kill and eat them, the official said.
Sudi Alimasi, an official with the rebel RCD-ML, said the group began receiving reports of cannibalism more than a week ago from people displaced by fighting.
"We hear reports of MLC and RCD-N commanders feeding on sexual organs of Pygmies, apparently believing this would give them strength," Alimasi said by telephone from the Congolese capital, Kinshasa. "We also have reports of Pygmies being forces to feed on cooked remains of their colleagues."
Nearly all the foreign troops involved in the war in Congo that broke out in August 1998 have withdrawn, but fighting has intensified among the country's main rebel factions, splinter groups and tribal fighters after the pullout in the east.
http://www.canada.com/news/story.asp?id=%7B1D4EDE00-1681-479A-A7BD-2566036A9E42%7D
Of Jim Goad's poignant words about San Francisco activists:
"Though San Franciscans may mince through the streets in protest of hate speech, they sure as shootin' despise dem trailer trash. Although their hearts are opened like dilated (something to do with the lower alimentary canal) for poster kids halfway around the world, they disowned the homebound hillbillies a long time ago."
"Though San Franciscans may mince through the streets in protest of hate speech, they sure as shootin' despise dem trailer trash. Although their hearts are opened like dilated (something to do with the lower alimentary canal) for poster kids halfway around the world, they disowned the homebound hillbillies a long time ago."
"An intellegent person would worry about a TV show" because we don't like being held up as objects of ridicule for middle class yuppie scum like yourself.
<Of Jim Goad's poignant words about San Francisco activists:
"Though San Franciscans may mince through the streets in protest of hate speech, they sure as shootin' despise dem trailer trash. Although their hearts are opened like dilated (something to do with the lower alimentary canal) for poster kids halfway around the world, they disowned the homebound hillbillies a long time ago.">
"Mince?!" I think Jim has some homophobia issues to work through. Send him a copy of "Heather Has Two Mommies" with my complements when you have a moment.
That is, if you have mail service in dem dare neck o' the woods.
"Though San Franciscans may mince through the streets in protest of hate speech, they sure as shootin' despise dem trailer trash. Although their hearts are opened like dilated (something to do with the lower alimentary canal) for poster kids halfway around the world, they disowned the homebound hillbillies a long time ago.">
"Mince?!" I think Jim has some homophobia issues to work through. Send him a copy of "Heather Has Two Mommies" with my complements when you have a moment.
That is, if you have mail service in dem dare neck o' the woods.
Who is to blame, those who would exploit “The Real Hillbillies” or “The Real Hillbillies” that allow themselves to be exploited?
Mike, you are quite possibly the stupidest specimen I've ever encountered on SF-IMC, and that's saying quite a bit, believe you me. How many times did Goad insult himself in the paragraph you find so shocking? That would be two, in case basic arithmatic is beyond your grasp. That's two times the number of references to "prancing." I suggest you locate a first grade mathematics textbook and study it thoroughly; that is, if you have libraries in dem dare neck o' the woods.
Why don't you go live in crushing poverty for, say, YOUR WHOLE FUCKING LIFE, and then report back to us on the question?
<Mike, you are quite possibly the stupidest specimen I've ever encountered on SF-IMC, and that's saying quite a bit, believe you me.>
Why, that is just so terribly hurtful. I haven't felt this wounded since my sister and i got divorced only a few months after our wedding-- a beautiful affair held in the shack near the distillery, just across from the outhouse, the sweet pungent stench of which still evokes memories of that special, special time.
Why, that is just so terribly hurtful. I haven't felt this wounded since my sister and i got divorced only a few months after our wedding-- a beautiful affair held in the shack near the distillery, just across from the outhouse, the sweet pungent stench of which still evokes memories of that special, special time.
One can still have dignity and self-respect. But it seems that is lost on the likes of Redneck Anarchist who believe that dignity and self-respect comes with price tag.
That isn't how upper middle class people behave in this culture. Dignity and respect are relative rather than absolute concepts. Wealthier people *define* what is worthy of respect and what is stylish as being those things that are not what working class/poor people do - so it's a trap one can't get out of. For instance, in the early part of the century when most people lived on farms, wealthy people took pride in the fact that they ate white bread, and meat more than once a week. Working class people who were striving were culturally set up to want to have these things, and on special occasions or if they had a good crop year, they could take pride in also getting white flour and buying meat more than once a week. As people started to move off the farm after the 30s US culture experienced things like cheap white bread (wonder bread was a later model) and TV dinners, and lots of lower middle class people took pride in how modern and wealthy they felt by adopting this food. Some of this is the subject of retro advertising shorts from the 50s that people laugh at today, or copy the style of to make posters for rock shows.
Anyway, but what do we see now? Gourmet upper middle class people make a big deal about how they only eat whole wheat 'peasant' bread, they eat as little unhealthy meat as possible, and there is a whole food cult in north Berkeley that thinks they are 'revolutionary' by inventing the concept of fresh vegetables (which were freely available back when people lived on farms but psychologically might have felt like they were the lower working class). 'white trash' , as upper middle class people call them, are defined by eating vegetables from frozen packs or cans, and eating white bread.
Anyway, but what do we see now? Gourmet upper middle class people make a big deal about how they only eat whole wheat 'peasant' bread, they eat as little unhealthy meat as possible, and there is a whole food cult in north Berkeley that thinks they are 'revolutionary' by inventing the concept of fresh vegetables (which were freely available back when people lived on farms but psychologically might have felt like they were the lower working class). 'white trash' , as upper middle class people call them, are defined by eating vegetables from frozen packs or cans, and eating white bread.
Mike, you make it sound as if San Francisco's gone downhill since I've been there--and that's saying quite a bit, too.
Dignity and Self-Respect is probably more of an absolute than you care to acknowledge cp. They have a term for what you describe, it’s called being shallow. Dignity and Self-Respect is something one can have regardless of status and being shallow is not just limited to the rich and upper middle class either. I have seen it on both ends of society, I have seen shallow rich and poor people and I have seen people rich and poor people act with Dignity and Self-Respect.
Why does something fairly simple have to get all twisted out of shape? I mean, this is pretty straightforward. A lot of rich executives are going to exploit a family of poor rural people on television. Oh sure, they will be compensated for their displays of "social idiocy," but what use is compensation for these few in light of what message it sends to society?
The message it sends is that being poor is not only humiliating, but worthy of exploiting for some "laughs."
C'mon folks, it's pretty easy. Pick up the phone and dial 323.575.2600. Tell the secretary that "The real hillbillies" must be cancelled, because making fun of poor people is patently wrong. For my part, I told the secretary I wouldn't watch ANY CBS programming if they go ahead with this, and would support any boycotts of the show's advertisers that will surely arise.
Who will speak up for the poor?
The message it sends is that being poor is not only humiliating, but worthy of exploiting for some "laughs."
C'mon folks, it's pretty easy. Pick up the phone and dial 323.575.2600. Tell the secretary that "The real hillbillies" must be cancelled, because making fun of poor people is patently wrong. For my part, I told the secretary I wouldn't watch ANY CBS programming if they go ahead with this, and would support any boycotts of the show's advertisers that will surely arise.
Who will speak up for the poor?
if that graphic of the flyer is accurate, and the executive did say that, it does show that one party is looking to take advantage of another party, while all the rest of america can sit their asses down on their sofas and turn on their $5000 televisions and laugh at the poor people...
i'd just hope that if this show becomes a reality, the executives could get taken for ride as well. poor people aren't stupid. if the executives wanna play a game, then play it back on them. never settle for what they offer. make them see how bad they want this...
there was an incredible documentary on class in america about two weeks ago on PBS. did anyone see it? really really good stuff. any way, if you did, constrast how PBS handled the fact that there are definite classes in america, with how CBS wants to handle it...
i'd just hope that if this show becomes a reality, the executives could get taken for ride as well. poor people aren't stupid. if the executives wanna play a game, then play it back on them. never settle for what they offer. make them see how bad they want this...
there was an incredible documentary on class in america about two weeks ago on PBS. did anyone see it? really really good stuff. any way, if you did, constrast how PBS handled the fact that there are definite classes in america, with how CBS wants to handle it...
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