French TV contestants made to inflict 'torture': the Game of Death

[Emit]

A French TV documentary features people in a spoof game show administering what they are told are near lethal electric shocks to rival contestants.

Those taking part are told to pull levers to inflict shocks - increasing in voltage - upon their opponents.

Although unaware that the contestants were actors and there was no electrical current, 82% of participants in the Game of Death agreed to pull the lever.

Programme makers say they wanted to expose the dangers of reality TV shows.

They say the documentary shows how many participants in the setting of a TV show will agree to act against their own principles or moral codes when ordered to do something extreme.

The Game of Death has all the trappings of a traditional TV quiz show, with a roaring crowd chanting "punishment" and a glamorous hostess urging the players on.

Christophe Nick, the maker of the documentary, said they were "amazed" that so many participants obeyed the sadistic orders of the game show presenter.

~snip~

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8571929.stm

[Amonester]

1. This is wrong on so many levels...

Anything to make a (ton of) Euro, I guess...

[Swamp Rat]

2. Yep, especially since we already know about this behavior through the 1961 Milgram Shock Experiment

and the 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment.

Sociopathic "French TV" execs are just trying to make a kiloton of Euros.

[RaleighNCDUer]

3. Is the French public aware of those, however?

They aren't even really well known in the American general public - though well known enough on boards like this that are sometimes preoccupied with authoritarianism. I'm often surprised by people knowing nothing about things which I think are common knowledge.

To the French public it may well be a first exposure to the concept (though making that first exposure part of a game show is bizarre, at the least).

[Chulanowa]

4. Or a reexposure

Sometimes people just need to be reminded of this stuff.

[Swamp Rat]

5. I wasn't aware of these studies until I saw this thread and immediately assumed French TV execs,

like American TV execs, were up to their usual BS.

Too bad they are being educated by a STUPID REALITY SHOW, like so many ignorant Americans. :(