Derren Brown: Pushed to the Edge

The Guardian newspaper calls it patronising, among other things. I thought the narrative kept as grounded as spectators.

This show has parallels to The Hunger Games, except it's very real. I did feel bad for the unwitting participants but I also found it fascinating constantly telling myself I would have acted sooner to end it all.

The thing is, unless you're in that situation you'll never know.

Ethically it's certainly questionable and by watching it are we ironically the very thing the show is telling us not to be.

As a social conditioning experiment, I found this very interesting! As a human mental health experiment, I truly hope they were plants.

Seriously disturbing, yet very compelling.

This was shown on Channel Four in 2016... poor Netflix play :/

So I've just watched Derren Brown: The Push... For my fellow social psychology enthusiasts, I can only describe this "documentary" as a 'Thrill-Seeker-Reality-TV show by a modern day Stanley Milgram'.

Seriously, this was a border-lining ethical nightmare. There is such a massive potential of residual psychological distress/damage for the participants... particularly if there is no on-going support or counseling to combat guilt and/or doubt of their core morals and character.

All this under the guise of teaching society to think before blindly following (or believing) the "Man"?

Hmmmmmm.

Episodes like White Bear (2013) and White Christmas (2014) of Black Mirror (2011) portray a dystopian society in which people convicted of crimes are punished by harsh methods, Derren Brown: Pushed to the Edge (2016) is a kinda of a similar idea for an episode where people who end up "pushing" are prosecuted to ensure the public safety.