Yikes. I suppose that if some politician brought back the gladiator fights, it would only take us a couple months before we would be lined up, screaming for blood and scalping death tickets. It seems like Netflix agrees with me, because their new show looks classless and gnarly.
Derren Brown, "psychological illusionist", host of the show, and probably a real-life asshole, wants to know if he can manipulate someone into thinking they are going to kill another human being by using social pressure.
Classy right?
In the trailer, we have a man named Chris who thinks he is in a real bad situation. 70 actors who are all involved in a “meticulously planned and rehearsed scenario” will try to get Chris to shove a guy off a high rise to his death. Chris does not know he's being filmed, because there would be no fun in that. In the trailer, a man has a heart attack (fake, of course), and the actors put increasing pressure on Chris until he thinks his only choice is killing this guy.
Brown, who doesn't sound like he has any faith in humanity (and I guess it's hard to blame him for that), thinks that when people are "confronted with authority, our natural instinct is to unflinchingly obey without question to such an extent that even the most moral people can be made to commit the most horrendous acts, simply because they are told to do so.”
In a lot of ways, this sounds like the Stanford experiment, but with a bunch of rubber-neckers packed into the seats. USA! USA!
The Push debuts on Netflix Feb. 27th.
social pressure as white coats in Milgram's experience.
But it's onlyTV reality, and so they are 71 actors ...