Poverty porn comes to your TV...

The Roman poet Juvenal coined the phrase ‘Bread and Circuses’ somewhere around the 1^st century. The phrase, in a nutshell, refers to the belief that the common man isn’t interested in his civic duty, his freedom or even the welfare of his fellow man. The common folk are simply interested in their own entertainment and are happy as long as they’re distracted from real issues surrounding them – the more outrageous the better.

The Bread and Circuses effect is on full and obscene display these days, and one need look no further than the CBS television network and their new show ‘The Briefcase’.

In this ‘reality’ show, two financially struggling families are made to deliberate over the decision of whether or not to accept $101,000 or to give it to another family in need. Each family is given this briefcase filled with money, and the first thing they’re made to do is spend $1,000 on themselves – a luxury seldom afforded to the deceptively named ‘American middle class family’.  It’s a clever ploy to give these unfortunate souls a taste of what it’s like to have disposable income so that they’re more prone to take the money and look like selfish miscreants when they make a ‘selfish’ decision.

Viewers of the show get to bear witness as these families wrestle with the choice of whether or not to keep the money, and if the decision wasn’t hard enough, they’re made to tour the other family’s home just to see how bad off they are. “What’s that you say? You’re trying to raise a family of five on $15 an hour? Well, the family you could be helping is expecting a new baby and the dad lost a leg in Iraq! Are you sure you really need this hundred grand?”  As these families are torn apart emotionally by this potentially life changing decision, you have commercials airing for luxury cars, credit cards and Hawaiian vacations in between.  How ironic. It might be funny if it weren’t so disgusting.

It’s profit from poverty, and what makes me really nauseous is the fact that there are going to be people who not only find this entertaining – but amusing. Don’t believe me?  I saw firsthand the other day how much contempt some folks have for those a little less fortunate while on my morning drive to work.

Every morning I take Wheeler Boulevard and generally find myself at a red light at the intersection of Champlain and Wheeler. Most mornings there will be someone standing at the chain link fence on the side of the road with a cup or hat, hoping that motorists might donate some spare change. I don’t have money every day, but on days that I do I happily contribute.  Last Tuesday morning, in the middle of a downpour, I watched as the driver of a very expensive SUV rolled down their window and forcefully threw what looked to be a handful of dimes and nickels in the general direction of the fellow who was standing there hoping for some kindness to be extended his way. It was one of the most insulting things I have ever seen one human being do to another in this city.


We’re living in scary times. The rich are preying on what’s left of the middle class, and if you don’t believe that fact you can check out the latest reports on the ever-widening wealth gap between the very rich and the rest of us poor slobs. As we work our day jobs and hope we have a little bit of money left over  for savings and entertainment after all the bills are paid, most direct their ire not at the folks up the line who are enjoying the lion’s share of the fortunes,  but look down their noses at those struggling more than we are.  Many idolize the folks who make more in a week than we do in a year but can’t be bothered even acknowledging the folks who truly need our help. Instead of lending a hand, many put a foot on the head of those in need to feel better about their own less-than-stellar situation.

They’re likely the same folks who sit and watch while honest, hard-working families go on a reality show to have their every move scrutinized and mocked just so they can have a chance at a better life – if only for a little while.  It’s a whole lot of “at least we’re not those people” at play and I suspect ‘The Briefcase’ will have no trouble finding an audience for their brand of poverty porn.

Do you think for one minute the folks with all the real financial power wouldn’t watch the exact same show with folks like you and I in the starring roles?

The fact of the matter is that there are two levels to society; the haves and the have-nots. Compared to the top tier folks in the western world, we are all the have-nots – just on slightly different scales.  The last thing we should be doing is making a spectacle of those who have less than us by not sharing our bread with them and making them the clowns in our circuses.