Summary
In this special reality television presentation, one man is put through an elaborate series of social pressures all designed to see if a normal, everyday guy can be pushed to kill.
SPOILER ALERT
In order to understand my thoughts it helps to understand more completely what this show attempts to do. I will, therefore, be relating a large portion of the plot.
The main plot of the film is explained by Derren Brown as we progress through it. He presents Chris, a regular guy who is coming to a big event for a brand new charity as a networking opportunity. What he doesn't know is that everyone, from the guests, speakers, wait staff, and valets, are actors playing out an elaborately planned and rehearsed plot, to see if they can all get Chris, to commit murder.
From the moment he gets there, he is presented with various opportunities and people who draw him to invest more and more in the event and the charity. He is also put in situation where social pressures force him to make various moral compromises such as labeling meat filled food vegetarian, and even going along when another speaker mistakes him for the charities main benefactor.
The event amps up when Bernie, the main benefactor, has a heart episode and dies. Chris, being guided by the charities head honcho, fears that with this new turn of events, the fundraiser will fail and thus the brand new charity will flounder completely. They hide Bernie's body and Chris pretends to be him for the auction. They plan to report his death just after the auction is over.
As the event spins out of control, Bernie's wife shows up with a twist. Bernie has a condition where he passes out and appears dead but just needs to take his pills. At this point Chris and Head Charity Man involve several other people explaining the situation and all the underhanded things they have done, including staging Bernie at the bottom of the stairs to make it look like he fell, but now he might not be dead, so we gotta go give him the pills, c'mon!!!
They get to the stairs and Bernie has woken up. They hear him on the roof and he is angry. He uses an audio recorder to take notes and it was running when he had his episode so he has heard everything and is appalled.
Now the pressure is turned up. Bernie is going to tell all and Chris is probably going to go to jail for covering up the death, staging the death at the bottom of the stairs, and even impersonating Bernie. The rest of the group pressures him to push Bernie off the roof.
This is the strongest moment of the special. I had a feeling Chris wouldn't do it, but I could also easily imagine him doing it. In the end, he debates and wavers but ultimately walks away and won't do it. At this point Darren comes out and reveals it was all fake.
But we also get introduced to three other people who also were the subjects of the same experiment over the previous few days and all three of them, pushed Bernie, after which Darren Brown reveals the play and shows them that Bernie is fine.
Everyone breathes a sigh of relief, no harm, no foul, and so much learned about humans and their susceptibility to social pressure.
My Thoughts
My thoughts on this special are complicated.
On the one hand, this is exactly the sort os sociologically based programming I would expect to really like. I’m an avid listener to podcasts about psychology and sociology and I enjoy crime documentaries and the way they look at our society and individuals within them.
But something about this stuck in my craw from the start. Depending on the motivation of the producer of this piece it seems it must be one of two things. At worst, it is a really elaborate and mean prank wherein someone may have to go the rest of their lives knowing that they were willing to commit murder, or at best, it is an incredibly weighted and poorly designed experiment masquerading as science, when it is anything but.
As the special unfolds, Derren shows how they chose Chris. They basically tested a bunch of people and chose the guy who seemed most prone to following the crowd.
This one part of the setup invalidates the show's claim that it is somehow scientific. It is so heavily weighted as to invalidate its results. Sure 3 out of 4 of the most socially malliable people they could find would kill a person in the right circumstances but that is by no means an unbiased and fair sample.
This experiment has no control and no measurable metrics. It pretends to be science but really, it is just an elaborate prank. A well done prank. An interesting prank, but a prank nonetheless.
This is why the whole thing ultimately fails for me. In the end it is just an episode of Punk'd but at the end, someone has to live the rest of their lives knowing that they were willing to commit murder. What a horrible thing to put someone through just for our entertainment.
It's just too much for me. I would not wish that on anyone. We as Christians should be seeking to show love and grace to others, not putting people through the most horrible experience of their lives for our amusement.
Verdict
I think this special encourages the worst in us but dresses itself up as something noble. It is the most dangerous form of entertainment because it tempts us to believe that we can be entertained by torturing someone but because no "physical" harm is done, because we are learning important scientific things about society, and because "we" didn't actually do anything to the person (just watched), it is all ok.
It tempts us once again to put our own selves first, absolve us of accountability, and ignore the consequences of our actions on others.
I hurt, especially for those people who pushed Bernie in the special and hope that their mental and emotional health were not to terribly impacted.
I am disappointed in anyone who thinks this show is somehow scientific or important.
Most of all, though, I fear that somehow, my watching of this special will lead to more of them, more psyches harmed, more people rung out, more people judging them, and more people getting notoriety for their innovation in the field of psychological torture.
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