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pixie - // People just always have and always will like a bit of slapstick. I don't think that's bad, or even a change. These people are consenting, presumably- medically checked first, physically and mentally and given proper care if needed. //
This is actually my point.
Yes, you can get people to do, and have done to them just about anything that does not break the law, and doesn;t kill them, if you pay them money, and yes, you can get an auydience, often a very large one, to watch that go on.
But my point is, is that really what we want to be delivering and experiencing for our entertainment? Is it really a good thing to encourage people in the belief that hurting and humiliating people for fun is a good thing to do?
I think it plays to the darker side of human nature, and as is the way with human, nature, once that slope is stepped on, it starts to get steeper very quickly.
As I pointed out on my OP - the '80's, we watched aghast at the cruelty of the Japanese for making and watching these TV shows, and now we are doing it too, and that to me is a bad move.