I Keep Checking Derren's Twitter For A 'Later We Bought Him A Pony'.
Well, Derren Brown's The Gameshow was the most uncomfortable thing I've watched in a very long time. Probably the one thing of Derren Brown's I'd actively advise against watching. I felt quite ill. I shook all over. I almost cried at one point. It was meant to be horrible, of course, but - although it's obviously better than a programme that isn't aware it's horrible - that didn't make it much less horrible.
I sincerely hope that Dave stayed in that poor man's house and baked him a cake or something.
In looking at reactions on Twitter, I've seen a few people going 'WELL, THAT DOESN'T PROVE ANYTHING; OBVIOUSLY PEOPLE ARE GOING TO GO FOR THE MORE ENTERTAINING OPTION'. I don't think 'people will value their own entertainment over the comfort of another human being' is an insignificant thing to prove. No, that's not the problem with The Gameshow.
Here's the problem with The Gameshow: Kris should have been an actor. The Gameshow wasn't about the victim; it was about the audience deciding what happened to him. Remote Control was not a real show. So why did a real person have to suffer? Because it made better television, of course, which raises the question: what right do the creators of the programme have to judge the audience? (Ultimately, I suppose nothing really awful happened to him and my thoughts on his experience have been coloured by my constant fear throughout the programme of how far it might go, rather than by how far it actually went, but he still had a pretty rubbish night.)
The other problem with The Gameshow is that they were clearly nudging the audience towards the negative decisions - by referring to Kris as 'the target', by showing that clip where he admitted to cheating on his girlfriend, by emphasising that Kris was a practical joker. To Derren's credit, he did show us these little manipulations; he's said in the past that, despite being a massive professional liar, he doesn't want anyone to watch one of his shows and see something that gives the wrong impression through heavy editing. But I think the experiment would have been more interesting and meaningful if it had shown whether an audience without these little pushes would still have devolved to the point where they were baying for a man's property to be destroyed.
Not that the manipulation made the audience's actions excusable, but, if this programme was genuinely made in the spirit of investigation, it did probably muddy the result. Although I suppose it depends on what exactly the aim of the investigation was. If it's about crowds being easily led from without, I suppose the manipulation isn't a problem; crowds often follow a leader, after all. If it's about how the crowd mentality works from within, though, it could have been better executed. The Gameshow did make a point (the television, the kidnap - by that point I was genuinely astonished by the audience's conduct), but perhaps it could have made a better one. (EDIT: Oh, hang on, there's currently a clip on the Channel 4 website ('Derren Discusses The Gameshow') in which Derren mentions that the gameshow format is often geared towards manipulation and bringing out the nastier side of people, and that the same group of people obviously wouldn't behave like that on the streets, so the easily-led crowd hypothesis seems to be the one he's working with.)
The ending and this low-level manipulation were very much tied together. On the one hand, the ending certainly made an impact; on the other, that ending relied on the audience making consistently negative decisions. It was in Derren's interests to push the audience in a behaving-badly direction so he could break out the impressive ending and hit them with the consequences of their actions, but of course that means that he himself became in part responsible for those actions. The moral message would have been stronger had the audience followed their own path into iniquity. As it was, it felt a little like the bearer of that moral message led them into a trap.
I still think Derren Brown is brilliant, and I'm looking forward to the other shows in the Experiments series, but, no, I wouldn't recommend The Gameshow. It undermines its own message too much to make the intense discomfort of watching up to that message worth it.
Incidentally, why does anyone ever apply to take part in one of Derren Brown's programmes? HE'S JUST GOING TO DO HORRIBLE THINGS TO YOU. EVEN WHEN HE'S TRYING TO BE NICE HE DOES HORRIBLE THINGS.
(Speaking of intensely uncomfortable things: I watched the film adaptation of We Need to Talk About Kevin earlier this week, not having read the book beforehand (if I recall correctly, it took me about three pages to realise I couldn't get on with the writing style). I kept waking up in the night afterwards and having to imagine that Applejack, Rainbow Dash and Twilight Sparkle were gathered around my bed, ready to protect me from any Kevins that might come near.
I'm - I'm a grown-up.
We Need to Talk About Kevin is also flawed, incidentally, because, whilst perfect characters are dull, so are characters with literally no redeeming features. Why do we have to talk about Kevin? Can't we talk about someone more interesting?)
I sincerely hope that Dave stayed in that poor man's house and baked him a cake or something.
In looking at reactions on Twitter, I've seen a few people going 'WELL, THAT DOESN'T PROVE ANYTHING; OBVIOUSLY PEOPLE ARE GOING TO GO FOR THE MORE ENTERTAINING OPTION'. I don't think 'people will value their own entertainment over the comfort of another human being' is an insignificant thing to prove. No, that's not the problem with The Gameshow.
Here's the problem with The Gameshow: Kris should have been an actor. The Gameshow wasn't about the victim; it was about the audience deciding what happened to him. Remote Control was not a real show. So why did a real person have to suffer? Because it made better television, of course, which raises the question: what right do the creators of the programme have to judge the audience? (Ultimately, I suppose nothing really awful happened to him and my thoughts on his experience have been coloured by my constant fear throughout the programme of how far it might go, rather than by how far it actually went, but he still had a pretty rubbish night.)
The other problem with The Gameshow is that they were clearly nudging the audience towards the negative decisions - by referring to Kris as 'the target', by showing that clip where he admitted to cheating on his girlfriend, by emphasising that Kris was a practical joker. To Derren's credit, he did show us these little manipulations; he's said in the past that, despite being a massive professional liar, he doesn't want anyone to watch one of his shows and see something that gives the wrong impression through heavy editing. But I think the experiment would have been more interesting and meaningful if it had shown whether an audience without these little pushes would still have devolved to the point where they were baying for a man's property to be destroyed.
Not that the manipulation made the audience's actions excusable, but, if this programme was genuinely made in the spirit of investigation, it did probably muddy the result. Although I suppose it depends on what exactly the aim of the investigation was. If it's about crowds being easily led from without, I suppose the manipulation isn't a problem; crowds often follow a leader, after all. If it's about how the crowd mentality works from within, though, it could have been better executed. The Gameshow did make a point (the television, the kidnap - by that point I was genuinely astonished by the audience's conduct), but perhaps it could have made a better one. (EDIT: Oh, hang on, there's currently a clip on the Channel 4 website ('Derren Discusses The Gameshow') in which Derren mentions that the gameshow format is often geared towards manipulation and bringing out the nastier side of people, and that the same group of people obviously wouldn't behave like that on the streets, so the easily-led crowd hypothesis seems to be the one he's working with.)
The ending and this low-level manipulation were very much tied together. On the one hand, the ending certainly made an impact; on the other, that ending relied on the audience making consistently negative decisions. It was in Derren's interests to push the audience in a behaving-badly direction so he could break out the impressive ending and hit them with the consequences of their actions, but of course that means that he himself became in part responsible for those actions. The moral message would have been stronger had the audience followed their own path into iniquity. As it was, it felt a little like the bearer of that moral message led them into a trap.
I still think Derren Brown is brilliant, and I'm looking forward to the other shows in the Experiments series, but, no, I wouldn't recommend The Gameshow. It undermines its own message too much to make the intense discomfort of watching up to that message worth it.
Incidentally, why does anyone ever apply to take part in one of Derren Brown's programmes? HE'S JUST GOING TO DO HORRIBLE THINGS TO YOU. EVEN WHEN HE'S TRYING TO BE NICE HE DOES HORRIBLE THINGS.
(Speaking of intensely uncomfortable things: I watched the film adaptation of We Need to Talk About Kevin earlier this week, not having read the book beforehand (if I recall correctly, it took me about three pages to realise I couldn't get on with the writing style). I kept waking up in the night afterwards and having to imagine that Applejack, Rainbow Dash and Twilight Sparkle were gathered around my bed, ready to protect me from any Kevins that might come near.
I'm - I'm a grown-up.
We Need to Talk About Kevin is also flawed, incidentally, because, whilst perfect characters are dull, so are characters with literally no redeeming features. Why do we have to talk about Kevin? Can't we talk about someone more interesting?)