And This Is What We've Come To

The BBC will make the unemployed and low-paid workers compete against each other for a cash prize in a controversial Hunger Games-type show to find “Britain’s Hardest Grafter”.

Only the UK’s lowest-paid workers will be invited to compete to “show their worth” in the reality show, capitalising on the trend for “poverty porn” established by the Channel 4 series, Benefits Street.

Applications for Britain’s Hardest Grafter, which will be screened on BBC2, are limited to those currently earning less than £15,500 per year.

The BBC is seeking 25 British workers, a mix of the unemployed, the under-employed and those earning the minimum wage, who will be given the opportunity to “prove themselves” through a series of challenges. A cash prize is on offer for the winner.

A representative of the production company Twenty Twenty told the website Graduate Fog: “In each episode, people will be put to the test in a series of challenges and tasks.

“At the end of each episode, those who have produced the least will be eliminated and by the end of the process, just one worker will remain. The winner will receive in the region of £15,000 which is a year’s living wage (outside of London).”

Satire just can't keep up with real life anymore.  I mean, surely this is a hoax ?  The BBC ?  Not Sky, not Channel 4, not some trashy cable-outfit, but the B. B. C. ?  They put out some shit certainly, but new low doesn't begin to describe it.

I suppose The Hunger Games is the obvious go-to reference for the Indy -- More current, more hip.  But The Running Man is what comes to mind for me, and dated as it is, it's arguably a closer match.  Here's direct extracts from Wikipedia, describing that film.

The film, set in a dystopian America between 2017 and 2019, is about a television show called The Running Man, where convicted criminal "runners" must escape death at the hands of professional killers.

2017, huh.  Two year away now.

Plot [edit]

In 2017, after a worldwide economic collapse, American society has become a totalitarian police state, censoring all cultural activity. The government pacifies the populace by broadcasting game shows where convicted criminals fight for their lives, including the gladiator-style The Running Man, hosted by the ruthless Damon Killian, where "runners" attempt to evade "stalkers" and near-certain death for a chance to be pardoned.

Pacifying the population with reality-teevee after economic collapse.  That doesn't sound at all familiar.  What was once dystopian fantasy is now our actual day-to-day reality.  And we just shrug, get on with our lives, trying not to get noticed, not to speak out, and accept it.