POSTED BY MARTIN KICH
In the “Culture Matters” section of NBC ‘s website, Daniel Arkin has contributed on article on a new game show called Paid Off, on which contestants are college graduates with significant student debt compete to answer trivia questions, with the winner having at least some of his or her debt paid off.
Arkin quotes the show’s host, Michael Torpey as observing, “’We’re playing in a weird space of dark comedy.’” Then he added, “’ As a comedian, I think a common approach to a serious topic is to try to laugh at it first.’” Torpey then did try to explain the incongruity between the show’s context and its tone: “Torpey said he strives to balance the light-hearted trappings of a game show with an earnest, empathetic look at the student debt issue: ‘I want to be very respectful of the folks who come on our show, who opened their hearts and shared their struggles with us. I hope this show destigmatizes debt. I mean, there are 45 million borrowers out there. It is a huge number of people!’”
Not surprisingly “some [my italics] critics have already pounced on the premise of the show, suggesting that the very concept is flippant and insensitive.” You think?
But Lesley Goldman, the senior vice president of development and original programming at TruTV, the network airing the show, has offered this—to use his word—ridiculous rationalization: “[He] said the ‘intention’ is to show that student loan debt is a ‘ridiculous crisis’: ‘The best way to address the issue is with a ridiculous game show.’”
In the same vein, Torpey added that Paid Off “tries to offer constructive tips, prodding its viewers to call their representatives in government”: “’We try to highlight all the different groups we think are complicit. We yell at Congress, we yell at the predatory loan groups, we yell at the universities themselves.’”
To his credit, Arkin does devote significant space to the grim statistics that underlie the show and highlights their implications: “It debuts as some 45 million Americans find themselves buried under student debt—including roughly 60 percent of college graduates who owe an average of $37,172. Americans collectively owe upward of $1.4 trillion in student loan debt—a staggering sum that helps explain why so many 20- and 30-somethings have struggled to gain a foothold in the middle class, effectively cutting them off from home ownership and other investments.”
Arkin’s complete article is available at: nbcnews.com/pop-culture/tv/new-game-show-paid-offers-chance-eliminate-student-loan-debt-n890316.
