Quiz Show or Good Night and Good Luck (EXTRA CREDIT DUE 10/5; WORTH 2 BLOG POSTS!)
View one of the following films: Quiz Show (1994) OR Good Night, and Good Luck (2005). Both are available at Askwith Media Center or the Donald Hall Collection.
Keeping in mind that both of these films offer fictionalized renderings of historical circumstances, write a minimum of 400 words explaining how either the quiz show scandals (as depicted by Quiz Show) or Edward R. Murrow’s exposé of McCarthyism (as portrayed in Good Night, and Good Luck) had political results during the 1950s and shifted ideas about the medium of television and its specific genres (quiz shows or news programs).
The film Quiz Show pretty much revolves around scandal. Twenty One is the name of a quiz show that airs on NBC. In the opening scenes we see the questions for Twenty One being transported in a sealed envelope from a bank lock box directly to the studio before the start of the show. As the film progresses we are introduced to the reigning champ of Twenty One, a man named Herb Stempel. Herb has a family, lives in Queens and is not very wealthy. Herb is about to compete for $70,000 on the show when the TV executives tell him that the ratings have fallen, so it's time for Herb to tap out. The TV executives order Herb to answer a question that he knows the answer to incorrectly just so that they can replace him with a well educated, more desirable looking young man. His name is Charles Van Doren and he is an instructor at Columbia University. He is very intelligent, just like Herb, and at first is hesitant to buy into the corruption that is Twenty One, but is then blinded by the fame and money. Charles competes on the show for a while but he begins to crack under the pressure. He starts allowing the TV executives to give him the answers in order to keep him on the show because of the skyrocketed ratings. When this scandal eventually came out in the 1950s, it only made people question the validity of television programming even more. Were people being mocked by television shows? Naturally people were angry to find out that their favorite TV shows were rigged. If anything, this probably caused a decline in live TV during the latter part of the 1950s. I find it kind of funny how "reality" based shows were clearly exposed in the 1950s yet they continue to be one of the more popular genres of programming on TV today. I guess what it really comes down to is the whole drama aspect. People like drama and they don't want to experience it or have it in their own lives so they get their fix by watching it on TV, happening to someone that they don't know. As someone close to me has done reality TV and continues to do so to pay the bills, she continually trashes it because she says that it really does not matter what unfolds in front of the camera, its the way that the producers chose to portray the storyline. Editing can be a terrifying process and it will either make or break you when you're on reality TV. It's kind of scary to see that nothing has really changed in the industry over the span of 70 years.
ReplyDelete“Television is a public trust. We can’t afford even a hint of a scandal in our company.”
ReplyDelete-Robert Kintner, president of NBC, in Quiz Show (1994)
Television quiz shows were a relatively new phenomenon in New York television in 1958, the year Quiz Show takes place. Four years prior they had been given the go-ahead by a landmark supreme court case, FCC v ABC, that quiz shows were not avenues of gambling. By the end of the fifties the reputation of the television quiz show would be permanently tarnished, and new regulations would take hold that banned quiz shows from rigging their results. Robert Redford’s Quiz Show is an excellent, artful dramatization of the events that led to this, and the implications they would have on race, class, and New York culture.
The quote that begins this article is a remark on the relationship between the television studio and its audience. Kintner was making the point that the popularity of television at the time was linked to trust that the American public gave to it. The film makes sure to show the ubiquity of film at the time, especially in an early montage showing various persons across the country flipping their televisions on to watch the game show in question (a near unthinkable cultural practice in 2017, when our game shows are usually relegated to special cable channels). Indeed, the scandals portrayed in this film were widely publicized, and it would be somewhat difficult for television to reclaim its damaged relationship with the public.
The film is pointed in its examination of how the game show system was rigged among racial lines in addition to financial ones. The film opens on television executives frowning at Herb Stemple (portrayed by John Turturro), and they remark on how un-photogenic he is. The man has big thick glasses, kinky hair and a bad tooth - he fit in with many common stereotypes of Jewish people at the time. They sought immediately to replace him with someone more photogenic and ‘likable’ - they chose Charles Van Doren, a young man from a prominent family of Dutch-American intellectuals. The middle-class jew from brooklyn wasn’t good for ratings, the handsome, privileged WASP was.
Even though amendments to the Communications Act of 1934 would prevent further scandals, the film emphasizes how the main actors within the scandal weren’t given particularly tough punishments, and in fact, returned to wildly successful careers in television later on. They show how the contestants themselves often suffered more by their damaged reputations (Van Doren in particular) than the executives. The societal implications of the scandal were felt with legislation, but hardly impacted the class structure of New York television.
ReplyDeleteThroughout the 1950’s Americans rushed to their TV sets after work and school to watch game show contestant’s like Herbie Stempel be tested on their knowledge of things of the world for a chance to win thousands of dollars. In Quiz Show (1994) Congressional lawyer Richard Goodwin presented the true scandalized story of networks, specifically NBC, fixing game shows by providing answers to contestants beforehand or pressuring them to lose when the ratings don’t meet their desire. What was merely supposed to be a source of entertainment for thousands of TV viewers was yet an embarrassment for compliers of the scandal and developed negative perceptions about the network, the contestants as people, and authenticity of live TV itself.
In Quiz Show, the producers of the hit quiz show “Twenty One” was widely popular and brought in many interest from different regions that were essentially geniuses. The game was designed for the producers to run the show from controlling the temperature in the room, to training long time contestants how to act confused to a question that they already knew; given the answers prior to the show. When the producers become tired of Stempel of winning continuously with ratings remaining constant due to his characteristic traits, they seek for new talent for the show to replace him. Persuading him to publicly lose his wins on an easy question he hesitantly agrees but regrets his decision once he realizes that the network flipped the game for someone more charming: Charles Van Doren.
The character contrast of the two participants are clear cut as day and night. Charles Van Doren is praised for being not only charmingly handsome but an intellect with a profession in higher education as a Professor at Columbia University and the son of a prominent literate. What’s ironic is that he seems like the type of contestant that doesn’t need to be on a show for money but he weighs his options and doesn’t deny a chance to win quick money even if he is cheating and lying in the process. Unfortunately for Stempel, the producers don’t see any value for him an longer and grow merciless of his situation because he isn’t the ideal white picket fence contestant that their ideal target audience is.
When a case is brought to light because of Goodwin’s efforts, they accuse him of being psychological ill when admitting to the government of his wrongdoing while Charles is praised for doing the same thing as Stempel during the trial. He has an outspoken personality and is viewed as a joke and isn’t taken serious about the matter nonlike Charles on the situation. It feels like this familiar clash of Men vs. Jews. Throughout the film many metaphors and microagressions are brought to light about the mistreatment of Jews compared to their counterparts. “Jews always lose to the gentiles” and in this story the gentiles win more money. In the end Charles loses his job but is still viewed as a saint while Stempel has to live knowing that he will always be an outsider and a fraud although he is just as smart as Charles but had to work harder to make ends meet.
Because of this scandal, the government gave the network a slap on the wrist because they truly believed that it didn’t hurt anyone; only benefitted players with money, showrunners with jobs, and the audience for mere entertainment. Fans were not happy about the fabrication of the shows and family members of the contestants grew frustrated and angered for damaging their critical glowing image. This prominent quiz show scandal continues to reconfirms suspicion of what is real and staged when viewers tune into TV today.
The scandals surrounding Charles Van Doren and NBC due to the program “Tweny-One” revealed some of the same aspects of television that A Face in the Crowd did. People are easily swayed by TV, especially the stars. The advertising of the Geritol tonic in Quiz Show and the advertising of Vitajex in A Face in the Crowd show that product usage increased when the well-loved TV star vouches for it.
ReplyDeleteQuiz shows were a huge hit in the 50s, and as quoted in the movie, people aren’t really interested in learning the facts or seeing someone far smarter than they are on TV, they “want to watch the money.” These sorts of shows appealed to people of all ages, education levels, races and classes. They still do, considering Jeopardy has been on air for more than 30 years and after its initial 37-year run from ’62 to ‘99, Match Game returned in 2016.
In part of the film, it mentions Herb’s theory of Jews always being beaten by and making less money than gentiles which is corroborated by Goodwin. This is interesting, considering the stereotype is that Jews are in charge of the media. This takes place only about 12 years after World War II though, so contextually Jews would still be somewhat concerning. The studio said they didn’t want Herb anymore because viewers didn’t want to be like him. They didn’t want to be “a know-it-all Jew.” They also tended towards liberal ideals which made them targets for the McCarthy communism accusations.
The end card of the film states that neither NBC nor the Geritol company were implicated by the scandals, and Enright and Barry took a little time off and then returned to TV to become millionaires. The only people who were hurt by the rigging of the game were the contestants and those who had placed their trust in them. As Dick Goodwin said, “I thought we were gonna get television. The truth is, television is gonna get us.” The establishment looks out for the big guys, not the little guys. It always has and it seems like it always will.
This proves that the political impact of these scandals primarily relies on having a face to put it to. People didn’t seem to care who actually rigged the game or why, but the people who got the brunt of the hate for it were just the faces of the show.
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ReplyDeleteThe 1994 film Quiz Show was based on a historic event, one that changed the way the public might view television. Lawyer Richard Goodwin investigated the game show, Twenty One, after Herbie Stempel (a player) accused Dan Enright (a producer) and others of making Stempel lose the game show, even though he knew the answer. Quiz Show revealed how the producers who had the power to manipulate were caught, causing the public to become skeptical. However, the networks denied knowing that the answers were being given to the contestants before the show, and in a sense, NBC was able to get away with it, which showed just how big television’s power could be.
DeleteThe lack of competition gave NBC, a major network, much advantage. The movie alluded that the head of NBC and those higher up working there knew about the scam. Yet, Dan took full blame denying that the network knew anything about it. Although this news would most likely hurt game shows and NBC’s reputation, both were still able to get back and move on. The new culture forming around the television was here to stay, even with the scandal. While networks do face serious circumstances in television history for many cases, they are able to get away with a lot and the FCC has to issue laws to keep some tabs on the networks’ power abilities. Behind the scenes, it can be suspicious, but NBC did not care as long as they had their advertisers and money. Even afterwards, Dan was still able to create a successful show, which meant that the network did not care so much about the honesty of their content as long as it would sell and their advertisers would be pleased.
Finally, game Shows are still popular from dating to celebrity ones, there are many still around. However, even now people sometimes wonder if such shows can be rigged. This court case brought out the truth of how easily producers fix and manipulate the show in order for it to sell. It still is the case today, especially on reality television. So, while the story may have informed the public on television’s deceit back in the 1950s, people ever since can be wary of the realism taking place on their screens. Yet the audience will find someone to blame, and then move on, continuing watching these shows, even if they might question the authenticity.