And Once Again, I Lose To Oprah
A good friend and I were recently discussing what would make for the most exploitative reality television program. We cycled through recovering drug addicts, quadriplegic veterans, and the corpses of stillborn children, and yet despite our best efforts, Oprah has outclassed us in every way imaginable.
How foolish we were, thinking that the way to make the show offensive was to pit undeserving and underprivileged classes of human against one another. As Oprah’s new reality show “The Big Give” proves, what it really takes to exploit these people is to pit people trying to help them against one another.
See, in our version, at least the dead fetus has a chance of winning fabulous prizes through his or her own merit. In Oprah’s show, teams of “Givers” compete against one another to bring in money for people in need. That means that if you’re a quadriplegic veteran, you get to watch helplessly while a team of morons infight, bicker, connive, and generally treat your welfare as a game. Which, if you’re an Iraq War veteran, you’re probably used to by now.
Plus, by turning the whole thing into a television show, she encourages corporations to line up “spontaneous chartable donations” ahead of time, so as to get themselves prominently featured on the show as “Big Givers.” Paying large sums of money to get your brand on a television show? Why, it’s hardly even charity at all! Huzzah!
But perhaps the worst of it all is that if this thing works like all the other reality TV shows I’ve seen, the viewers at home are going to pick favorite teams to root for each episode. It brings it one step closer to a sporting event, which is infinitely more bearable. Except that in this case, it means that millions of people will be sitting in their living rooms willing your team to fail to provide for you.
Oprah, if I wore a hat, it would be off. Your ability to cheapen the act of helping the less fortunate really makes me feel better about the very little I do to improve the world. If you see Bono, tell him thanks too.
When not blogging for Cracked, Michael makes reality TV as head writer and co-founder of Those Aren’t Muskets!
March 3rd, 2008 at 5:05 am
And yes, Glendoor, we all know you’re an Iraq War veteran. Start being paralyzed and we’ll start honoring your sacrifices.
March 3rd, 2008 at 8:24 am
I think you’re mistaken. “The Big Give” is what Oprah calls her boyfriend Stedman’s schlong.
March 3rd, 2008 at 9:04 am
Harmon Leon needs to infiltrate this show.
March 3rd, 2008 at 9:17 am
You don’t have an expensive hat, Michael?
March 3rd, 2008 at 11:27 am
Does Oprah have an expensive hat?
Even several maybe!?
March 3rd, 2008 at 11:35 am
I heard Oprah owns a sweatshop that makes expensive hats.
March 3rd, 2008 at 11:46 am
I heard that Hannah Montana once worked in a sweatshop. She killed the owner eventually, but, instead of releasing the other children, she just took over management.
March 3rd, 2008 at 12:18 pm
Really, MiSwa, this is just the next logical step in the evolution on Oprah’s ongoing exploitation of people poorer than she.
That said, why can’t she exploit me with her money? I have little shame or decency. Coupled with my ingrained North American lust for money, I’d be a perfect candidate for her circus.
March 3rd, 2008 at 12:31 pm
Don’t forget Dr. Phil! He exploits people’s personal problems! He has the movie voice over guy do his promos to make interventions and theraputic brow beating seem more exiting! He also has an annoying voice he uses in between lavish outbursts of applause from his slavishly loyal studio audience! Seriously, I can’t stand Dr. Phil, and a pox on Oprah for making his mustachioed ass famous.
March 3rd, 2008 at 12:38 pm
Oh, don’t worry Swaim , until Oprah starts promising a machete fight for a cheeseburger(type yet to be determined) she ain’t got shit on you.
March 3rd, 2008 at 12:42 pm
SickBoy: Dr. Phil’s ass has a moustache?
Maybe I should start watching his show…
March 3rd, 2008 at 12:59 pm
Why is it that anyone who is rich and on TV also happens to be a pompous ass? Is there some rich person rule that I am not aware of?
Or, Mr. Swaim, is this another one of your plots to keep the black man (or woman, in this case) down? Because, if I recall correctly, she will give one million dollars one of the contestants as well….
I just noticed that you have no racial diversity in your “Those aren’t muskets” crew… how do you explain that Mr. Swaim?
Or should I call you Grand Wizard Michael “I love lynchings!” Swaim
March 3rd, 2008 at 1:48 pm
Michael, as those (secret) naked poker games in the Californian wilderness have proven to me, you’ll ALWAYS lose to Oprah.
March 3rd, 2008 at 1:57 pm
Okay, I’m going to man up and admit it: I totally missed the origin of the expensive hat thing, and I have no idea what it means, and it kills me. None of you elitist bastards would like to clue me in would you?
March 3rd, 2008 at 2:19 pm
If you were paying attention instead of masturbating to Hannah Montana, you’d know that all expensive hats were bought from the entity featured in this post.
http://www.cracked.com/blog/2008/02/06/the-worst-youtube-video-of-all-time-the-daily-nooner-est/
And just for being so ignorant, I’m not going to hyperlink it. You’ll have to copy and paste. Shame on you Michael.
March 3rd, 2008 at 2:20 pm
Fuck. It auto linked.
March 3rd, 2008 at 3:18 pm
Everyone loses to oprah. I lose because every fucking day at 4pm, when oprah comes on in my time zone, there is nothing to watch BUT oprah. I lose because my mother tivos every episode of oprah and reads her magazines. She has turned the person I most admired to a oprah evangelical.
ps- I refuse to capitalize oprah’s name. Tiny steps like these will bring down this superficially sympathetic monstrosity.
March 3rd, 2008 at 3:57 pm
Man, that guy with the anti-capitalist spam must be kicking himself that he didn’t wait a few days - this would have tied in perfectly with his ‘Oprah’s a DISGUSTING HYPOCRITE SLOB’ theme. Assuming that it is actually a guy, and not Hannah Montana…
March 3rd, 2008 at 4:18 pm
Every time I see a picture of Oprah (especially when she had the bowl cut) I’m struck by her resemblance to the Flintstones’ neighbour Weirdly Gruesome. Meeester Fleeentstone!
March 3rd, 2008 at 8:27 pm
Oprah is orginally from my home state of Mississippi which is the poorest state in the nation, next to Arkansas. I never hear of Oprah doing anything for people here, despite the “charity work” she is known for. I have seen one “Oprah Winfrey Road” sign near her hometown of Kosiusko, and it was a dirt road.
March 4th, 2008 at 2:32 am
I can see (Black God) Oprah coming up with this concept. “Hmmmmm. Do I save the Peruvian blind orphans, or the limbless African landmine victims? Decisions, decisions….”
Then Bono would say “Wait a minute why choose? We can just pit them against one another. YEEEhah potatoes! I Just loves me some saving the world”
Then they would all start a big charity event which doesn’t actually raise any money (like Live
but get’s heaps of publicity for the washed up egotistical has-been musicians that take part in it. Just so they can both be all smug and preachy about it.
HEY BONO, HOW MUCH OF THE PROFITS FROM YOUR LAST ALBUM WENT TO CHARITY?!?!?!?! OH WHAT’S THAT? NONE! FUCKING NONE! WHY DOES EVERY FUNDRAISING EVENT YOU’RE INVOLVED IN CRASH AND FUCKING BURN? RED LABEL OR WHATEVER IT WAS CALED? BECAUSE YOU’RE A FUCKING MUSICIAN NOT A FUCKING BUSINESS MAN, YOU STUPID DOUCHEBAG. Just GIVE people money instead of waving it around LIKE A GIANT FREUDIAN COCK!
God, I hate Bono.
What was this article about again?
March 4th, 2008 at 2:33 am
Hey check out what I figured out how to do
8) 
It was meant to say Live eight.
March 4th, 2008 at 8:46 am
Pharaoh Mustafa, I’m confused… Grand Wizards: they can cast 9th level spells, right?
March 4th, 2008 at 11:22 am
“Yeehah potatoes!” needs to catch on.
March 4th, 2008 at 1:13 pm
Slightly-more-than-kingmonkey, you are frighteningly correct. With the right feats (and epic spells), they’ll finally crush all minorities once and for all. Archmage Swaim will usher in a new era of darkness and horror, and our level 3 party will be powerless to stop him.
In all seriousness, I think I’m going to write that into a campaign now.
March 4th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
“Yeehah potatoes?”
Are you saying something about the Irish, you bastard?