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GraceTopic starter

81% of the persons like you and me would have killed for a quiz show and money.
Just to make think about "Them" in "They don't care about us" - it could be us as well.

The following disturbing articles are about an experiment in a "TV quiz show" in France that animated people to apply virtually deadly electric shocks to a candidate.

In reality the candidate was an actor and no current was applied yet the candidates did not know and would have killed the man - following the orders of the game "Le jeu de la mort" ("The game of death"). The experiment was based on studies of Nazi behaviour in order to explain how people may be manipulated to kill.

French TV will broadcast the documentary on this experiment tonight at 8:35 p.m. on France 2 channel.
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[French polemic over fake game show electrocutions

A state-run TV channel is stirring controversy with a documentary about a fake game show in which credulous participants obey orders to deliver increasingly powerful electric shocks to a man, who is really an actor, until he appears to die.

By JAMEY KEATEN
Associated Press Writer

PARIS —

A state-run TV channel is stirring controversy with a documentary about a fake game show in which credulous participants obey orders to deliver increasingly powerful electric shocks to a man, who is really an actor, until he appears to die.

The producers of "The Game of Death," set to air Wednesday night, wanted to examine both what they call TV's mind-numbing power to suspend morality, and the striking human willingness to obey orders.

"Television is a power. We know it, but it's theoretical," producer Christophe Nick told the daily Le Parisien. "I wondered: Is it so important that it can turn us into potential executioners?"

In the end, more than four in five "players" gave the maximum jolt.

"People never would have obeyed if they didn't have trust," Nick was quoted as saying in the paper's Wednesday edition. "They told themselves, 'TV knows what it's doing.'"

While "Le Jeu de la Mort" (The Game of Death) is mainly an indictment of television's alleged power over society, Nick also takes issue with viewers who let themselves get taken in by today's TV's universe - such as with talk shows.

"People are put on a set, where they speak even about their sexual problems," he told Le Parisien. "We wait for the admission, the flaw. Faced with exhibitionists, TV viewers have become voyeurs."

The experiment was based on the work of late psychologist Stanley Milgram, who carried out a now-classic experiment at Yale University in the 1960s. It found that most ordinary people - if encouraged by an authoritative-seeming scientist - would administer ostensibly dangerous electric shocks to others.

At its root, both Milgram's work and the experiment unearth a question many people worldwide have contemplated after 20th-century genocides like the Holocaust: Would I, too, be capable of following orders to inflict pain - or even kill?

France-2 bills the fake game show as the subject of a sociological and psychological documentary, and it comes with a warning: "What we are going to watch is extremely tough. But it's only television."

The newspaper Liberation had a different take, with the headline: "Television tests its limits."

Recruiters found 80 "contestants" and said they would take part in a real TV show called Zone Xtreme. Each was presented to a man said to be another contestant - but really an actor - whose job was to answer a series of questions while strapped into an electrifiable chair in an isolated booth.

In a game of word associations, the actor identified as "Jean-Paul" was told that any wrong answers would merit punishment in the form of electric shocks of 20 to 460 volts, zapped by a console operated by the contestant.

As the wrong answers invariably roll in and the voltage increases, the presenter, a well-known TV weatherwoman on France-2, at times exhorts contestants not to bend to his cries of agony, and says the production house takes all responsibility. A goading studio audience adds to the pressure.

The contestants' identities are protected, with their faces blotted out and their surnames held back.

According to a book on the experiment, "L'Experience Extreme" (The Extreme Experiment"), at times Jean-Paul pleads: "Mr. Producer, get me out of here, please! I don't want to play anymore" - which apparently wasn't enough to get most contestants to walk away.

In the final tally, 81 percent of the contestants turned up the alleged juice to the maximum - said to be potentially deadly - level, according to the book. Only 16 people among the 80 who took part backed out.

European TV has explored the limits of morality before.

In the Netherlands in 2007, a game show titled the "Big Donor Show" was branded as tasteless and unethical for offering a kidney as top prize. Its aim, to raise awareness about those awaiting for organ transplants, appeared to work: over 12,000 people registered as organ donors after the broadcast. That was at least three times the normal average - for a month.

Nick said the experience was an awakening for many participants.

"People were convinced that they'd never succumb to this - and then they discovered they did it in spite of themselves," Nick told The Associated Press in an interview, referring to the participants. "They were stupefied."

The experience, he said, continued to effect participants even after it was over. Some grew bolder about standing up to their bosses, or admitted their homosexuality to their families, he said.

"For many, it changed their lives," Nick said.

---

Associated Press Writer Fanny Dassie contributed to this report.]


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French info:
JUSQU'OÙ VA LA TÉLÉ ? Docu. -  

Origine : France. (2010)
Scénario : Christophe Nick.
Musique : Patrick Chemer, Frank Williams.
Réalisation : Thomas Bornot, Gilles Amado.
Distribution : Tania Young (L'animatrice), Laurent Ledoyen (Jean-Paul), Denis Loubaton (Le producteur), Lucie Jousse (L'assistante de prod), Julie Bergasse (L'assistante plateau), Hervé (Le chauffeur de salle).

Date : 17/03/2010
Horaire : 20H35 - 22H10
Durée : 94 mn

Les dérives de la téléréalité sont inquiétantes. Violences, tortures, humiliations dominent les programmes dans le monde entier. La télévision détient-elle un pouvoir spécial ? Dans les années 60, une expérience psychosociale prouvait que 62 % des individus administraient des chocs électriques extrêmes en obéissant aux ordres d'un scientifique. L'équipe de Christophe Nick a transposé cette expérience à l'univers des jeux télévisés, avec un jeu aux règles abjectes, où il est question d'infliger des chocs électriques à un inconnu, en étant dirigés par Tania Young. Qui va se soumettre ?


German info:
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Video in German / French:
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Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 06:00:00 PM by Guest
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Create your day. Create the most astounding year of your life. Be the change you want to see in the world! L.O.V.E.
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"I am tired, I am really tired of manipulation." Michael Jackson, Harlem, New York, NY, July 6, 2002
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******* Let's tear the walls in the brains of this world down.*******

Time to BE.

that with the electro shots, i've actually seen on tv before
it is indeed frightening how people were convinced by others to apply the shocks as they really believed they were applying actual electric shots! Even with the actor begging to stop
only a few seemed uncomfortable, the rest just carried on giving the shocks! It just goes to show how easily people can be influenced by others who are in a higher social/ intellectual position than themselves into doing their bidding...it's frightening!It's mind control on a terrifying level because the people handing out the punishment are merely acting on a word from someone else who they see as intelligent enough to know what they're doing!
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Sarahli

Yes exactly mind-control. Don't think for yourself just obey. This result shows how medias have shaped people's mind. All the participants said something like we know that TV would not allow this to be that it wasn't for real. Means they blindly trusted TV for its appearance of a trustworthy authority as a citizen is supposed to trust his government. But they couldn't be 100 % sure that there were no real victims and it didn't prevent them from pressing the button.
Don't know who will benefit from this TV show ? Who needs to get the temperature of mind-control level ? Weird.
Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 06:00:00 PM by Guest
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We are here for you Michael and will always love you whatever happens.
'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'
"You shall not accept any information, unless you verify it for yourself. I have given you the hearing, the eyesight, and the brain, and you are responsible for using them."

Hello Grace,
I watched it.
It's an experiment set up by dr Stanley Milgram in the 1960's and they adapted for TV. Milgram was studying the resistance to the authority (scientists, in that case), when, IMHO, the TV shows how easy it is to manipulate people and how difficult it is to stand up when you're left on your own and under the pressure of a group of people.
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GraceTopic starter

Quote from: "yspadda"
IMHO, the TV shows how easy it is to manipulate people and how difficult it is to stand up when you're left on your own and under the pressure of a group of people.

My understanding of the plot was to show how easily people go beyond reasonable when somebody tells them that "everything's fine" and "the show takes all responsibility" DESPITE they hear with their own ears the CONTRARY of what they are being told.
It is about neglecting common sense when somebody else "takes" the responsibility
(that can never be taken from any individual's shoulders even if they believe it or are made believe it).

Or as psychologists studying murder cases would put it: "The killer is in each and everyone".
That's what makes it so difficult to shift the blame actively or passively on others.
That's what raises the question why "they" don't care about us - do we?
Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 06:00:00 PM by Guest
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Create your day. Create the most astounding year of your life. Be the change you want to see in the world! L.O.V.E.
***********************************************************************************************
"I am tired, I am really tired of manipulation." Michael Jackson, Harlem, New York, NY, July 6, 2002
***********************************************************************************************
******* Let's tear the walls in the brains of this world down.*******

Time to BE.

somekindofsign

  • Guest
[youtube:3qrsjedp]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9IHPtCfFNc[/youtube:3qrsjedp]
Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 06:00:00 PM by Guest
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