7/28/2019 French Game Show

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F r e n c h p o l e m i c o v e r f a k e.g a m e -s h o w e l e d r o c u t i o n sSC IENCE : 81 percent

of contestants deliver

a 'deadly' surge.

B y Jam ey K eat en

The Associated Press

PARIS - A state-run TVchannel is stirring controversywith a documentary about afakegame show in which credu-lous participants obey ordersto deliver increasingly power-ful electric shocks to a ma,n,who is really an actor, until heappears to die.

The producers of"The Gameof Death,"broadcast Wednesdaynight, wanted to examine bothwhat they call TVs mind-numb-ing power to suspend morality,and the striking human willing-ness to obey orders.

''Television is a power. Weknow it, but it's theoretical,"

producer Christophe Nick toldthe daily Le Parisien. "I won-dered: Is it so important that itcan turn us into potential execcutioners?"

In the end, more than four infive "players" gave the maxi-mum jolt. .

"People never would haveobeyed if they didn't havetrust," Nickwas quoted as say-ing in the paper's Wednesdayedition. "They told themselves,'TVknows what it's doing.'"

While "Le Jeu de Ill, Mort"(The Game of Death) is mainlyan indictment of television'salleged power over society,

Nick also takes issue with view-ers who let themselves gettaken in by today's TVuniverse- such as with talk shows.

"People are put on a set,where they speak even about

their sexual problems," he toldLe Parisien. ''We wait for theadmission, the flaw. Facedwith exhibitionists, TVviewershave become voyeurs."

Theexperiment wasbasedonthe work of late psychologistStanley Milgram, who carriedout a now-classicexperiment atYale University in the 1960s.Itfoundthat most ordinarypeople

- ifencouragedby an authorita-tive-seeming scientist - wouldadminister ostensibly danger-ous electric shocks to others.

At its root, both Milgram'swork and the made-for-TV

. experiment broadly replicating

F rance i te le vis ion

TV host Tania Y oung, right, directing a player while actor

Laurent Le Doyen is seen on a screen for the reality TV

show "Executioner TV." State-run television is making

headlines about a fake game show based on a 1963

experiment in the United States.

the lab workunearth a question on France-2, dhorts contes-many people worldwide have tants not to bend to his cries ofcontemplated after 20th-cen- agony. A goading studio audi-tury genocides like the Holo- ence adds to the pressure.caust: WouldI, too, be capable The contestants' identitiesof following orders to inflict were withheld, but their faces

pain - or even kill? were in view during the show.France-2 billed the fake As wrong answers pile up,

game show as the subject of a and the voltage increases,sociological and psychological Jean-Paul pleads: "Get me outdocumentary, and added a of here, please!} don't w~nt to

warning~''What we are going_play anymor~" ,and fmally_to watch is extremely tough. s~ops ans:venng, theJ?- ,fallsBut it's only television." SIlent despIte the e.lectnc~olts.

The newspaper Liberation Contestants grow mc:easmglyhad a different take, with the edgy bU~t?ld to contmue, theheadline: "Television tests its vast maJonty do.. . " In the final tally, 81 percent

lImIts. , "of the contestants turned up theRe;rUlters .found 80 contes- juice to the maximum - saidto

tants. andSaIdthey would take be potentially deadly _ level,part m a real TV show called according to "L'ExperienceZone Xtreme. Each ~as pre- Extreme" (The Extreme Experi-

sented to a man sa~d to?e ence), a book authored byNick,another contestant ~ m realIty the producer. Only 16 peoplean actor - whose Job was to among the 80 who took partanswer a series of questions backed' out.while str.a~pediJ?-toan electrifi- European TV has exploredable chaIr m an Isolated boo~h. the limits of morality before.

In a game of word assocla- In the Netherlands in 2007,ations, the actor. identified as gameshowtitled the "BigDonor"Jean-Paul" was told that any Show"was branded as tastelesswrong answers would merit and unethical for offering a kid-punishment in the form of elec- neyas top prize. Its aim, to raise

tric shocks of 20 to 460 volts, awareness about those awaitingzapped by a console operated for organ transplants, appeared

by the contestant. to work: over12,000people reg-Asthe wrong answers invari- istered as organ donors after the

ably roll in and the voltage broadcast. That was at. leastincreases, the presenter, a three times the normal averagewell-known TVweatherwoman - for a month.'