Rivercard
Too much good stuff
WTH, this is disgusting.....
------------------------------
http://www.vox.com/2015/5/28/8676579/the-briefcase-review-cbs
The new CBS reality show The Briefcase pits the debt-ridden against each other. No. Really.
At the center of each episode of The Briefcase are two families, both of whom are deeply in debt and continuing to call themselves "middle class," when it's desperately clear that they're clinging to the absolute bottom rungs of that ladder with all their might. They, of all people, need help, and television is here to give them that help.
The problem comes when the two families are essentially forced to compete to see who has the saddest story ... without even really knowing they're competing. At the episode's beginning, each family is given a briefcase with $101,000 in it. Of that money, $1,000 is spending money. But the other $100,000 is money that the family is told it can use in one of three ways. It can keep all of it, it can give some of it to another needy family, or it can give all of it to another needy family.
What both families don't know is that the other family is weighing this same decision at the same time, in another state entirely. The premiere features a down-on-his-luck ice cream truck driver's family and the family of a war veteran who has lost a leg, both wrestling with how much (if any) money to give to the other family. They agonize and agonize, and the show does everything it can to ratchet up their agony.
The producers of the show come in to drop off the briefcase, then force the families to go through several wrenching stages of figuring out just how selfless or generous they're going to be. They're asked to sum up how much money they'd feel like giving away right now, both separately and as couples. And in between these stages, the producers text them with more information about the family they could serve as unlikely benefactors toward, slowly turning those families from abstract, imaginary figures into actual human beings.
It's gut-churning, and not in a good way. The show ignores the awfulness at its core, to its detriment
------------------------------
http://www.vox.com/2015/5/28/8676579/the-briefcase-review-cbs
The new CBS reality show The Briefcase pits the debt-ridden against each other. No. Really.
At the center of each episode of The Briefcase are two families, both of whom are deeply in debt and continuing to call themselves "middle class," when it's desperately clear that they're clinging to the absolute bottom rungs of that ladder with all their might. They, of all people, need help, and television is here to give them that help.
The problem comes when the two families are essentially forced to compete to see who has the saddest story ... without even really knowing they're competing. At the episode's beginning, each family is given a briefcase with $101,000 in it. Of that money, $1,000 is spending money. But the other $100,000 is money that the family is told it can use in one of three ways. It can keep all of it, it can give some of it to another needy family, or it can give all of it to another needy family.
What both families don't know is that the other family is weighing this same decision at the same time, in another state entirely. The premiere features a down-on-his-luck ice cream truck driver's family and the family of a war veteran who has lost a leg, both wrestling with how much (if any) money to give to the other family. They agonize and agonize, and the show does everything it can to ratchet up their agony.
The producers of the show come in to drop off the briefcase, then force the families to go through several wrenching stages of figuring out just how selfless or generous they're going to be. They're asked to sum up how much money they'd feel like giving away right now, both separately and as couples. And in between these stages, the producers text them with more information about the family they could serve as unlikely benefactors toward, slowly turning those families from abstract, imaginary figures into actual human beings.
It's gut-churning, and not in a good way. The show ignores the awfulness at its core, to its detriment
