During the Great Depression, people also enjoyed watching their fellow struggling citizens entertain them by competing in dance marathons, six-day bicycle races, and flagpole sitting contests. “The drama of watching poor people slug it out for cash prizes might be new to television but it's been around for years. Over at The Huffington Post, Jason Stanford placed the controversy in a historical context: That's less than 0.2 percent of his income: $101,000 is to Les Moonves what $97 is to a person earning $52,000 per year.”

The people on 'The Briefcase' are agonizing over $101,000 – a shitload of money to most of us. “…there's something really perverse about Les Moonves earning money based on the emotional and financial anguish of poor people, by making a game-theory spectacle of human suffering that he could end, himself, personally, if he wanted to. The term “altruism porn,” in case you were wondering, seems to have originated (at least in this case) in a review by Vulture TV writer Margaret Lyons, who wrote of the series: If CBS really wants to spotlight the hardships of America's poor, it should donate outright, not exploit their suffering.”Īs of this writing, the petition has garnered 14,199 signatures toward a goal of 15,000 and has been shared 231 times on Facebook. “Consider that CBS' CEO makes $54 million a year. “This show is cruel and exploits the suffering of real families,” reads the petition posted to Care2 and authored by a user named Ashley Neumeister.

Controversy around CBS's new reality series “The Briefcase” has been brewing for awhile (see Andy Dehnart's take here), but now a petition is circulating that charges the show with catering in “altruism porn.” The premise? Financially struggling American families are presented with a briefcase containing $101,000 before being given the choice: keep it all for themselves or share the wealth with another family in similarly dire circumstances.

Dead space ellie porn