Tuesday, January 13, 2009

There are so many wrong answers to this question.

ABC has a new show called "What Would You Do?" and I hadn't even seen promos for it. I'll admit that I was drawn to it because of another show with the same name that I was very familiar with once upon a time.

But this show is creeping the hell out of me. Here's the premise: the show's producers create artificial situations using actors who break social rules or commit major transgressions. Then they watch how people around them react to the dilemma. Will the person confront the transgressor? Will the person say nothing? It's like a truly disturbing Candid Camera.

In the segment I just watched, two actors--a man and a woman--are in a restaurant pretending to be on a first date. They're having drinks at a bar. The woman excuses herself to go to the bathroom, the man makes small talk with the people sitting next to him, and then after a moment, he slips something into his date's drink--in such a way that the person next to him sees this.

Very few people, it seems, say anything or warn the woman. A couple of people call the bartender to the side to report what they've seen. Most seem to not want to get involved. And this only gets worse when the woman is wearing a lower-cut dress with bright and flashy colors, as opposed to the first part of the segment, when she's wearing a simple black dress. This dismissal of the woman who, as far as they know, is about to be drugged and raped is frighteningly dependent on how she's dressed and thus who they assume she is.

The show lauds the heroism on the part of the few on step in. It's depressing to think that this is the exception and not the norm.

I found this video clip, which doesn't show the whole segment. It leaves out one woman who not only confronts the man who drugged the drink, but also warns the woman and goes to the bathroom to check if the woman is ok after having sipped the drink. It also leaves out the part where the "hero" who confronts the guy also threatens to hit his wife if she doesn't be quiet.

No comments: