Bum Fights and Indecline
 

Has anyone seen these DVDs? I know this is older news, but these guys are still around and I'm curious as to what everyone thinks. Is this a dead issue or can we talk about it?

http://www.klas-tv.com/Global/story.asp?S=774283

I haven't seen the DVD's, but I have read some articles about them. I think it is sad that the "producers" of this garbage feel no compunction about what they are doing because, "we paid them." It has the same stink as the Roman Gladiators. Really sick.

I've seen it live. *shrugs*

Exploitation is exploitation, whether it's large breasted cocktail waitresses or stinky homeless guys.

But they weren't forced into it, they got paid, and may have even understood the release that they signed.

No, it's not pretty, and I doubt that I'd buy the video, but I'm not the one to decide.

Market forces will either support it or kill it.

An ex-friend of mine told a story once of encountering a homeless woman in the street, who asked for money. He didn't give her anything and she let out a stream of cussing at him for a minute straight. He continues on his way and a half-block down the street is another homeless guy asking for change. He tells this guy he'll give him a $20 bill if he goes up to that first woman and punches her in the mouth. And the guy does, and gets paid.

I repeat the story here because it has always stuck with me. I don't know what the various moral implications are. I guess it all kinda evens out in the end. I do know that I never would have done that in a million years.

The moral implications are this: when people are desperate they will do anything for money. One of the video guys and I talk about this often. I had a lot of questions about it at first, but after talking to him for a while I knew what he was trying to show everyone. Great guy, very intelligent, very respectful.
Brianna, they actually paid for a few of the bums, Donnie and Rufus, to live in a hotel and tried getting them straight with the money they earned from the DVDs. Donnie kind of got swindled by the lawyers promises of making millions if he would testify against the guys who made it. He did, and the money he made from the producers got used up on lawyers so he is back on the street, from what I hear. Rufus is doing well. I'm pretty sure he has a job now. So Indecline actually tried to help them. They had a good amount of money saved up for the two of them, but Donnie got greedy and screwed it up for he and Donnie.
I agree with Wolfy. It's ugly, but it's what people are willing to do when they are desperate. That is part of the intended message of the video.

I haven't seen the video, but I agree that if the two people in it were paid and knew they were being filmed, THEY were not exploited.

I can see where advocates for the homeless (I'm one) would be upset, however. Such a video tends to make people think that ALL homeless people are like those two, when nothing could be further from the truth. A significant percentage of people living in homeless shelters are mothers with children, for example.

If you want a take on a very different segment of the homeless population, you can read the essay I wrote a while back about Clarity Rose

What's the entire intended message?
Desperate people are willing to do ugly things for money and there will always be an audience willing to pay --- you just need "creative vision" and producer? The Pit Bull genre of entertainment?