Friday, December 05, 2008

Secret Millionaire?

What do you think of this new show??

1 comment:

Amanda said...

okay, so comment way overdue. as you know, i cried when i watched this. :) maybe it was just an emotional day or something... haha. but in general, i had mixed feelings about the show. There were a few things that I expected not to like, and some of those things turned out to be accurate. But there were also a lot of good qualities that redeemed it a little:

Con: They only spent a week living "in poverty." That's not a whole lot of time to really understand what their life is like.

Pro: Although they did only spend a week there, the comments that the man and his son made seemed to show that they really learned from the experience. We'll see if it lasts. I'd like to see some kind of follow up at some point, to see if anything in their lives changed because of this experience.

Con: The minimum amount that they have to give away is $100,000. For a multi-millionaire, that's not really a whole lot.

Pro: The minimum was $100,000, but they ended up giving away a lot more than that. That makes me think that they really did care about these people, and wanted to help them.

Con: Big brother kind of feel... these rich people "lowering" themselves and giving to the poor to make themselves feel better. For a lot of these people, the money that they get will definitely help them for a little while, but a lot of these situations can't be fixed by simply throwing money at it. There are a lot of systemic things that need to change.

Pro: They really tried to understand the people's stories, and genuinely wanted to help them. And this could possibly change their perspective, maybe their lifestyle, and might even bring them to work for systemic change.

Con: The secrecy. It seems a little deceptive (maybe unethical?) to lie to people about their situation.

Pro: I don't really have a pro for this one. I just didn't like it.

There's probably a lot more that I could say, but that's all I've got for now.

My hope for the show? That the millionaires who participate don't just go "slumming" for a week, give away their money, feel like they've done a good deed, and go on unchanged. Even if they only give away a certain amount of money during the actual show, I hope that it creates a lifestyle of giving and caring for the poor. And I would love to see some of them make really radical changes in their lives, maybe even in their income.