Misery TV: The controversy behind CBS's The Briefcase
Why journalist Esther Breger calls CBS's The Briefcase the latest in television's long history of humiliating poor people.
A new reality program called The Briefcase debuted on CBS last Wednesday. It was a ratings hit, but also earned a heap of critical scorn for its premise.
Each week, a family in dire financial straits is given a briefcase with $101,000, and faced with an agonizing choice: how much do they keep, and how much will they give to another family in just as bad, if not worse, an economic situation of their own.
What the two families don't know (but the audience does) is that both couples have been given the briefcase and will walk away with the full $101,000 — but not before an hour of agonizing moral duress.
The New Republic's Esther Breger wrote about the subject in an article called "Television's Long History of Humiliating Poor People." She says it's the latest in a genre known as "Misery TV" or "poverty porn."