Caffeine
Caffeine
Registered: Aug 2000
Location: Cambridge
Posts: 7113 |
American Candidate
I remember someone making a post about this a while ago, but I was in Philly for the 4th of July with my girlfriend and a few friends when I had a sudden urge to go to the park. Upon arriving at the park a man approached us (as they often do in parks) and asked us if we'd like a chance to be on TV. I asked, of course, for more information as we had some time to kill.
Well, firstly, the premise of American Candidate is as follows:
quote:
Reality TV will take a look at the world of politics through the eyes of Showtime's American Candidate this summer. It appears that the RTV show will have the same lack of integrity, honesty, and trustworthiness as the political process it is portraying. Citizens who are disillusioned with America's political process will see the choices made by the producers of American Candidate as further proof that it's all smoke and mirrors and the average person's efforts to participate in the process are a waste of time.
Here is a quote from the Showtime website: "Coming on Showtime in Summer 2004, American Candidate is a ground-breaking television series in which the American people will identify a People's Candidate that they would like to see run for President of the United States."
Here's the truth: The twelve so called candidates are in fact simply twelve people who have been cast by the producers. This despite the so called "support" voting that has been taking place on the show's web site for months.
People who thought they were to be "candidates" applied on the web site and then sought support through posts on the site. The support that each candidate sought on the site and the subsequent voting meant nothing. The producers interviewed 24 "semifinalists" and then selected the 12 they wanted to cast.
SF Weekly's Matt Smith writes that "the 'candidates' were tricked into pointlessly promoting the show, which will be cast like any other TV program -- with a casting call." Smith calls for a boycott of the show and showtime's parent company Viacom.
The show which was bounced from two other networks before landing at Showtime, is produced by R.J. Cutler who was responisble for "The War Room" and "A Perfect Candidate."
It is Cutler who announced that all of the campagining that the applicants on the show's web site have done and all of the voting via the web site was meaningless. In fact it was a sham to hype the show and build a following before it aired. According to Cutler: "You won't be able to find anywhere that anyone associated with the show that says Web site support has any direct impact on somebody getting on the show. The decisions as to who gets on the show are made by producers of the show -- by me -- and by Showtime working together. I take full responsibility for that. The online support is a way of building a community of people in common with American Candidate and support a forum for ideas outside the two-party process." It seems Mr. Cutler's wants a one-party system, leadership "by me".
I don't fault anybody for wanting to make decisions and have controll over their project. Nor do I fault anybody for making a buck in the entertainment industry. I do find fault with R.J. Cutler because what he and Showtime did was wrong. They mislead people for their own purpose. They were dishonest, unethical and demonstrated a lack of character. And that's politics as usual. "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss."
Do don't be fooled. There are no candidates in this show, not even for a meaningless election.
Nobody expected a TV show to produce an "American Candiate" that would actually seek and have a chance of election to public office. But it was expected to be an interesting look at alternatives and what the public might want. Instead it is just one more instance where producers promise the viewing public one thing and deliver another. What we have here is both politics and TV as usual. To bad, it could have been real.
So I was in the park and the 4 remaining Candidates were there and I was told to walk up to them (with cameras surrounding) and ask them questions and, well, debate them. They were positioned, literally, on soap boxes.
I was arguing with one woman who finally gave up and said "Maybe YOU should be on this show instead. Why don't you stand up there and see how it is?"
So I did, and I continued to argue with her about affirmative action. After it was over I was pulled aside and told my footage would be most likely used and they needed me to sign a release for them to profit greedily from my image and such. Which I did.
If anyone has showtime, or watches this (neither apply to me), let me know if you see an odd boy.
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07-06-2004 06:23 PM
