Do I think this TV show is a good idea? No, as described, it seems too corny to be a success and it’s obviously very tone-deaf given the current administration’s anti-immigrant policies. Is the idea being proposed a Thunderdome for migrants, as was implied? I don’t read it that way?
“Two immigrants enter, one American leaves.”
In part that's because the implication is that if you're not The Winner, you don't get citizenship and can be deported to Libya or something. If we were actually providing paths to citizenship for everyone who wanted to come here, it would feel less like a Hunger Games thing. Plus, of course: Noem.
I think it's more likely to be a ploy to launder themselves as pro-legal immigration than it is to be green card squid game
Why would you afford a charitable explanation to people who—at no point in their history—have done nothing to earn it and have, to the contrary, saw fit to instill cruelty along every step of the way?
It feels very exploitative, it nothing else. And I just don't trust these people not to be abusive.
Yeah, but that’s more in the “bad TV” realm for me than the “Trump admin planning something nefarious” realm. At least how I read it.
It's one thing when a private media company pays a freely-willing participant to participate in a show. It's another thing when a government dangles freedom in front of a captive, scared, and desperate minority participant to participate in a show.
Agree, and knowing them, they probably want to put out a perfect, made-for-TV immigrant as the bar of worthiness or acceptability.
We have literally no evidence that was the plan. Nothing in the article says that and nothing the producer has written suggests that.
Aaron, i respect your work, but we are past the point of waiting for evidence for every move by fascists. I think immigrant families like myself have more than justifiable concerns about, at best, offensive TV pitches like upthread.
No, the history of reality TV suggests that. Look at Judge Judy. Who chooses to be on that show? People who can afford lawyers? Or disadvantaged folks who see it as their hail mary for justice that otherwise seems unattainable? Why would this be any different?
That’s an argument against the inherently exploitive nature of reality shows, not a specific concern about the actual proposal. And you know that in Judge Judy, the plaintiff gets paid no matter the outcome and the defendant never has to pay anything, right?
The government proposing a reality show about a marginalized group in a media environment where reality shows are exploitative does not deserve a benefit of the doubt about whether they'll be exploiting the marginalized group in their show. The burden of proof that it's not exploitative is on them.
Both parties actually get paid no matter what, for appearing on the show. IOW, yes, I am aware.
I want to see the entire Trump administration pas those challenges without assistance first. Could Trump pass a citizenship test? Not in a million years.
"I don't read it that way" isn't exactly an unequivocal rejection of the Thunderdome interpretation.
Thunderdome where the game is rigged to fast track the afrikaner’s they flew in—and to show how “superior” they are
Remember when a hockey team had teachers scrambling to collect all the cash they could hold as an intermission game? This is like that.
somehow much worse
Because the pitch doesn’t come from Noem. It comes from the producer, Rob Worsoff, who is a naturalized Canadian, who offered a believable explanation. Also, because I know that USCIS has historically worked with outside groups and the media to promote naturalization, which is not a bad thing.
Time to flood Rob Worsoff with emails. This cannot be normalized. It’s dehumanizing.
Do you have an email address? I haven't been able to find one.
About 40 percent of Hollywood is Canadians.
Oh so as long as the right people get to make a buck dehumanizing immigrants is okay? Late stage capitalism for ya, folks
Let Mr. Beast run it. Losers are eaten by sharks. Now there's a show for 2025.
And maybe it’s racist as fuck!!??!!????
Any reality show, however well-intentioned, that required the cooperation of the Trump administration would end up advancing his project of ethnic cleansing. Unavoidable
Satire
On a personal note, I sometimes get to hear well-meaning, earnest people present ideas for media projects designed to promote immigration and shift public opinion. I will not be sharing details, but let’s just say that some ideas are best left on the drawing table.
Maybe just delete the incredibly insensitive post instead of trying to justify it?
Why not just make the process easier?
public opinion isn't really why my people are in the cages, contrary to the perceptions of some Very Serious People, but I suspect you might understand that
You want to turn this into a fucking reality show?!? What is wrong with you?
Slow your roll Maybe, reread the thread
how many of them are just "hunger games"?
You can't have art without inspiration, but inspiration without editing is just a hot mess.
I obviously do not. I literally just said it was a bad idea. Again, we are talking about a specific thing; a pitch for a TV show. I am discussing the facts of that pitch as have been provided by the media, and nothing released so far has involved ICE Thunderdome as some people are suggesting.
So many people do not read things fully before they react. (And some of us "send" without proofing very well. Deleted the one with the typo).
It’s an ICE Potemkin, meant to make the immigration system look fun and fair while distracting from its actual horror.
You suggested that you thought it was a bad idea because it was “too corny” and “tone deaf” in the current climate. Maybe I missed the sarcasm or the joke? If so I apologize. But I I suspect you weren’t being sarcastic?
Can’t imagine we should be giving the people who want to end birthright citizenship and not give people due process the benefit of the doubt. Just feels like misplaced trust.
If someone WAS proposing ICE Thunderdome, then obviously my response would be different. But this is not that. A lesson I learned from Trump 1.0 was to save my outrage for the big things. Half a million people could lose their legal status in days. A tone-deaf TV show pitch is small potatoes.
fair enough. it’s still weird and dehumanizing though
Yeah, as I said, bad TV pitch.
I understand what you're saying, as one of those affected, but here's the problem with that logic- that pitch can escalate just as quickly as everything else has. That's the issue I take with it.
You’ll forgive me though if I find myself not taking very seriously a pitch for basically The Amazing Race but you get a cash prize AND a personalized natz ceremony at the end. It’s just so far from ICE Thunderdome that I’m just struggling to gin up outrage given what they are doing right now.
it's less the pitch itself and the sheer ignorance of the optics we are definitely in danger and this project in its best form would still add to that
You do not in fact have to give fascists any benefit of the doubt. In what world do you think she's proposing a show that is legal or respectful of immigrants or immigration law? She shoots puppies and does photo ops in front of illegally imprisoned victims of illegal deportations. This isn't a game
I'd say while you're right, the letter of the pitch as far as we know is innocuous, a reality show version of that Yakhov Smirnov sitcom from the late 80's, I think its title was his catch phrase "What a Country." That said I think a lot of the response is understandably filtered by the messenger1/
delivering that letter: Kristi Noem's notorious tactical cosplay and extraterritorial detention center photo ops brings hard core Auntie Entity vibes. Or, you know, they could just enlist public broadcasting in collaboration to produceore sensitive accounts of the immigrant experience. 2/2
Hey, so, these people are monsters and everything they touch is rotten. So we can VERY SAFELY assume that AT BEST it will be a way to trick people into giving their info to ice so they can be kidnapped. There are no small wins with people who do press shoots in front of emaciated prisoners.
Hope that helps.
doing anything like this, even with the best intentions, at this moment in cooperation with noem’s department is a NO NO NO. at the least it’s whitewashing noem and her stooges. there’s nothing to defend here.
Yes, though I’ll say that my personal thought on the matter is that the public opinion battle over the use of cages was lost in the 1980s before I was born, and the immigrant rights movement has been playing catch-up ever since.
i still believe in the power of the people and that we will be free
It is a terrible idea by terrible people. Thinking even for a second that it won’t be about humiliating and degrading the contestants ignores everything we know about them. C’mon man.
Yeah. I feel like TV producers are famous for terrible pitches that are tone-deaf for reasons that would have been obvious if they ever ran the idea past some normal people. Bad ideas, but also not like… remotely comparable to jailing people without trial or kicking a million people out of status.
I think this is underselling the dystopian vibe it gives off. To me, its the idea that this could easily, and quickly, spiral into something much darker.
Tone-deafness is something the producers share with Noem et al - maybe the reason this got this far.
reality tv producers can also basically not pay the contestants a living wage and they can’t be apart of a union either
Yes! The reality TV industry can be extremely exploitative to contestants. No debate there.
This administration would end up sending the losers to Libya or CECOT. It would be the migrant Hunger Games.
From my perspective as a naturalized citizen, I think the pitch could be greatly improved by having at least one natural-born citizen as the placebo, to see how badly that person does in comparison to the contestants.
What happens to the losers on the show?
It is very hard to do this - I feel like I’m abandoning individuals. But you’re right. We have to focus on the big things.
That's his name? Worsoff? Man...
