Hitting below the belt is what a Dutch TV contest did. A dying woman named Lisa had to choose between three people vying for an organ. She had to decide who of three patients will receive her kidney. Lisa based her choice on contestants history and profile. TV-viewers had to help make up her mind via SMS-voting. All this live in The Big Donor Show.
When the idea leaked into mass media, people were shocked. The producer said that the show chaises one important goal – to solve the problem of shortage of Dutch donors, and nothing commercial. This divided people into those who supported and opposed the idea. Dutch politicians even proposed to prohibit it but by doing so they were sort of ignoring the freedom of speech and other human rights.
Basically, the concept for me looked like this: a woman will have to reject two contestants and sentence them to death in favor of the third one. Oh, I forgot – all this with the help of SMS-voting. Nothing commercial? I doubt it.
But the reality turned out to be even more pathetic. The show did air on Friday evening. But the whole thing turned out to be a big mystification. The so-called donor was an actress who was not dying and, moreover, was not going to choose between three patients. These, in their turn, were absolutely real and in need of a kidney transplant. Do I need this kind of reality to turn towards people in need? Definitely, no. There are tons of effective ways to make a problem look important. It doesn’t have to be a commercial circus with actors and dying contestants. But The Big Donor Show definitely demonstrates the sick reality we create to live in.
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