Last night I turned on the television, and instead of watching Miley Cyrus and David Cook at the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree Lighting, I flipped to channel 5 and saw a show I not heard of before. The show was called “Secret Millionaire,” and the premise is as follows:
Each episode features 1-2 related people who just happen to be multi-millionaires. After proving to the audience that these people are legit with shots of their mansions, personal jets, and Lamborghinis, we are informed that they will be giving that all up for a week. Stripped of their luxuries and credit cards, one millionaire a week is sent to a very poor neighborhood, given the equivalent of a welfare wage, and sent to live in the most basic apartment or mobile home.
As the week goes on, the millionaires must present themselves falsely as normal people filming a documentary about the community, and meet as many people as possible. After 25 minutes of some very depressing stories of poverty, illness and violence, the millionaires pull back the curtain, reveal their true identities, and distribute at least $100,000 of their own money.
At first I was a bit creeped out, and could only think about how Fox was pulling in millions of dollars in advertising revenue by showing the poor Katrina victims in Louisiana getting $100,000. I felt like this was TV trying to turn poverty into a reality show, and allow the rich to get on TV and “have an experience” that only cost them a couple bucks.
But after watching the show, I saw that it was more than that. The millionaires seemed to experience a transformation throughout the course of the show. Gregory and Cole Ruzicka, father and son millionaires from California were very affected by the experience. Cole remarked how he never knew that people lived with the poverty he saw, that he had assumed that poor people were ignorant or negligent, and that it was the rich people who are ignorant of how millions of people live.
In the end I found it to be a very moving show, and would love to hear what you think if you get a chance to watch it. I will only plug Fox’s show because they also have a page called Fox Gives that features organizations they are donating money to in conjunction with this show.
So check it out on Wednesday nights on Fox, and let us know what you think.
almost barf but jury is still out.
I like you found it interesting but have missed the beginning on two shows so was unsure of how the convinced someone they were normal while having a camera crew filiming them the whole time….but while giving a low income person a $50,000 SUV seems a bit corny and excessive…a good Honda or Toyota would have lasted for many years……( do they have to pay the taxes on it)… It is nice to see folks giving back to the community…