For some reason, someone in my house decided that they wanted to try out
The Secret Millionaire on
FOX last night. Sure why not I thought. Hell, I'll try almost any show at least once. So I flipped the channel and with an open mind, I started watching. Instead of a relaxing evening on the couch, we ended up spending the next 60 minutes shouting at the screen.
The premise of this tripe is a millionaire leaves the lap of luxury for a week and takes up residence in the reality of poverty where they will meet locals who are in need all the while never disclosing their real purpose. The locals are told that these newbies to the neighborhood are just being filmed by a documentary crew who are examining poverty as not to raise any suspicions. By week's end because apparently a whole week without maids, obnoxiously expensive cars and their McMansions would be the equivalent to modern day torture, our hero, the millionaire, then donates tens of thousands from their personal accounts to some of the neighbors who all just happen to also have ties with volunteer groups and charities. Once the initial "shock" of the true identity of these millionaires wears off, everyone has a big group hug, while the audience coos, "ahh." The majority of reviews I have read about this show stress that it's unscripted but you need only watch a few minutes of it to see just how scripted it is. I wouldn't be surprised in the least to find out that they are reading from cue cards. The only bit of genuine emotion is at the end when the checks are doled out.
Case in point, this week we saw
Myles Kovacs, co-founder of
DUB magazine, and his trophy-esque wife, Cynthia, moving into Watts for the week. Now right off the bat, I had major issues with this couple. Their lead in consisted of vulgar displays of their self-made wealth. Kudos to Myles for making it but honestly there is no need to flash your bling around so blatantly. Show a little dignity! Hell the
Real Housewives over on Bravo are more tactful than these people and that's saying something.
Myles claims to be a Los Angeles native who grew up in East LA, yet, all he knew about
Watts was it was the place where the Watts Riots took place. Now any self-respecting Angeleno who was born and bred here like my good self, knows where Watts is and its significance to the city as a whole. So to say you have no idea where or what it is, was just fueling the fury I was developing for this show. Cynthia, his wife, just put me over the edge when she looked so condescendingly out the window when they passed the projects.
But back the story. The car drops them off at their new home, where they are given their "welfare" money for the week which was a total of $110. They were flabbergasted as to how that was going to last them a whole week. Seriously, that amount for two people to be used for seven days is doable especially when it's just for food and perhaps transportation. It just takes a little creative accounting. They certainly aren't going to starve during their visit or so you would think. They check out their new digs and decide to get some groceries. Now, no one with a partially functioning brain would ever do what they did next. They went to the local corner liquor store to buy the food for the week!!! Who the hell does that?!?!?! Everyone knows the prices in those stores are jacked up because normal people usually just pop in there for an emergency item of some sort, NOT their weekly food shopping. And all the while they are in the store, Cynthia is whining about how she wants a giant bag of chips while Myles is stocking up on
Cup of Noodles. Personally I would have gone with some
Kraft Macaroni and Cheese but that might just me. This whole exchange set me over the edge once and for all. What part of poverty and no luxuries don't these people understand??
Another one of those "it never happens in LA" moment is when Lydia comes over to welcome them to the neighborhood. Honestly, this NEVER happens in this city. I have lived here all of my life and have only ever met a neighbor or two once or twice and certainly wasn't greeted with a house plant when I moved in. But as usual, I digress. The rest of the show pretty much consisted of Myles and Cynthia taking part in various volunteer events where they are exposed to how the rest of the world lives. One of the only rewarding moments of the show for me was that it was kind of cool to see that there is a horse riding school of sorts set up in the smack dab in the middle of the inner city. But that was the pretty much the only positive I took away.
Another thing that really bugged me about this show is that the supposed hero aka the millionaire needed to participate on this show to open his eyes to volunteering and donating to charity. WTF is up with that??? I know plenty of people who live paycheck to paycheck who don't need reminding to help the less fortunate. It just disgusts me that these people are that wrapped up in their little lives of living to work and making that almighty dollar to not spread the wealth to others who have far less. I wonder if they even know that their donations to the charities are tax deductible?? And while I'm still on the subject of what else annoyed the hell out of me was Cynthia and her lack of any form of reality. Her eyes nearly bugged out of her already large head when she learned that one of the organizations helps women who have just been released from prison. At that point, I just felt like reaching into the TV and slapping her across the face. Does she not watch the news out there in
Alhambra, which trust me is not on any wealthiest cities of the world lists that I know of.
And one more thing before I wrap this up, what is the point and message being sent by the millionaires having to put on their regular clothing (all of course high end designer gear) when they reveal their identities and dole out their checks. I find it utterly condescending and get a feeling that they are just rubbing the noses of the people that they are helping, in the fact that they are the haves and their recipients are the have nots. Honestly, this really pissed me off!
For whatever reason be it the current economical climate, the holidays quickly approaching or the fact that there isn't much else to watch this time of year, Secret Millionaire is proving to be somewhat of
a hit, much like the
British show of the same name that it is based on. Basically if you need reminding that there are people in the world who are in far worse situations than you, then I suggest you tune in, otherwise I say give it a miss and maybe spend that hour doing some volunteer work or writing those end of the year checks to charity.
Insomnia is really an awful thing and most likely one of the things that has attributed immensely to my addiction to television. From time to time, it haunts me and I will lay in bed watching TV, all the while trying to decipher the closed captioning as not to wake the rest of the house. I have always had a weakness for the odd infomercial or those As Seen on TV commercials. Hell, I even worked on some sets for these types of shows and no, I won't let you in on any juicy gossip, but what I will do is bring you a new addition to TVholics Anonymous, the "But Wait There's More" section where we will recap some of those late night ads that grab your attention when you think to yourself, "Why didn't I think of that?" or "Are you freaking kidding me?"
mesmerized by Vince and his amazing Slap Chop! Now you might recognize Vince Offer from the ShamWow advertisements. Could he be the next generation's answer to the godfather of the genre, Ron Popeil. You know Ron, the inventor of the Chop-o-Matic, GLH-9 otherwise known as Hair in a Spray Can, just to name a few of the hundreds of other fantasticly outrageous inventions he has come up with.
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