Extreme Makeover (Home Edition): Corporate Charity

Numerous times I have walked into my mothers room to find her bawling her eyes out with a box of tissues lying close by next to her in bed. Alarmed that my mother is crying I ask her what’s wrong and she hopelessly points at the TV and I realize once again she is watching ABC’s hit reality TV show Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. The premise behind the show is truly altruistic and fairly simple: find a family who is suffering from ongoing hardships and turn their life around by providing them with a very large house including all the wonderful amenities that a well-off family home would have. People like my mother absolutely love the show because of its appeal to emotion but I on the other hand tend to take a more stolid approach and wonder what exactly the motives are by the producers of this large-scale production.

Almost everyone can agree that reality TV is only true “reality” to a certain extent. I’m sure hours and hours are spent editing the film and tweaking sound bites and making other technological alterations to make the show the beautiful sop story that it is. At some point I begin to wonder where exactly the line is drawn between providing a true philanthropic event verses the formation of good television. American capitalism has unarguably resulted in a greater and growing divide between the rich and the poor.

The same capitalism that fuels and produces shows such as these seems to only add to the problem by using immense amounts of money and resources on a few individuals so that they can jump from an extremely poor environment to a rather upscale environment, completely adding to the overall economic inequalities of the nation. This notion is illustrated by a before and after picture of a home that was redone in the show posted below.

Before:

















After:

















Also playing off of this idea arises the thought that the show could be making a more humble and widespread difference for families across America using the same amount of time and manpower spent on a single family. Unlike my mother I tend to laugh and be cynical when I watch the show rather than empathize and cry with the poor and unfortunates family new and spoiled life.