NEWS: Reality Show Contestant Committs Suicide

Reality television strikes again. An up and coming boxer from Philadelphia who was a participant in NBC's newest reality series, "The Contender" has committed suicide. The boxer, Najai "Nitro" Turpin committed suicide before the series has even begun airing. Producer, Mark Burnett, of Survivor fame, says that this changes nothing in the planned broadcast of the show.



Reality TV has changed our culture dramatically in the last few years. All thanks to the contributions of Mark Burnett.

This was not the first suicide connected with one of Mr. Burnett's shows. In the first first version of "Survivor" produced for Swedish television, the first person voted off the show committed suicide.

I am afraid that the tremendous pressure put on the contestants of reality shows has the possibility to spawn more suicides. Granted Mr. Burnett has since instituted a personality screening process for his contestants, but other producers may not take such cautions.

Related News Links:
NBC's The Contender
Profile of Najai 'Nitro' Turpin

[edit on 2/15/2005 by phreak_of_nature]

Who cares? It's between him and God now. Personally, I think anyone who watches reality shows on a regular basis should contemplate suicide. What a bunch of fake garbage!!

Sorry, I just had to vent.

Peace

Good post phreak. Much to consider here.

Besides offering low production costs and consequently high profits, reality TV has a lure. What the H is it? ...The 15 minutes of fame thing? A moment of prominence for the otherwise disenfranchised? What?


.

Originally posted by phreak_of_nature
Reality television strikes again. An up and coming boxer from Philadelphia who was a participant in NBC's newest reality series, "The Contender" has committed suicide. The boxer, Najai "Nitro" Turpin committed suicide before the series has even begun airing. Producer, Mark Burnett, of Survivor fame, says that this changes nothing in the planned broadcast of the show.

This burnett guy seems like a bit of a dirtbag. When one of the survivor contestants fell face first into a fire, he ordered, ordered, the production crew to not help him or be fired. He says it was because they couldn't do anything anyway, but now this? He's actually going to air this show?

In the first first version of "Survivor" produced for Swedish television, the first person voted off the show committed suicide.

Dear god, thats terrible.

Originally posted by Nygdan
This burnett guy seems like a bit of a dirtbag. When one of the survivor contestants fell face first into a fire, he ordered, ordered, the production crew to not help him or be fired. He says it was because they couldn't do anything anyway, but now this? He's actually going to air this show?

I had forgotten about this one, but yes, your right. The man suffered some severe burns, and was removed from the "island".

My fear is that incidents like these will spill over into other shows. There are other networks, WB, that are producing reality shows that may not go to the same lenghts to screen there contestants.

There was one version of the CBS show, "Big Brother" where one of the contestants was removed from the show for threatening another contestant with a knife. Seems to me that regardless of the screening, it is possible for a "loose cannon" to make it onto the show.

Ah, yet more violence related to the recent change in Television fads. I can't remember the exact name of the show but the host of a show where people confronted their cheating lovers via sting-like operations actually got stabbed by the cheater and the cameras just kept rolling instead of jumping in to help pull the dude off of the host. But hey, its all in the name of ratings so it must be alright huh?

Originally posted by Nygdan

Originally posted by phreak_of_nature
Reality television strikes again. An up and coming boxer from Philadelphia who was a participant in NBC's newest reality series, "The Contender" has committed suicide. The boxer, Najai "Nitro" Turpin committed suicide before the series has even begun airing. Producer, Mark Burnett, of Survivor fame, says that this changes nothing in the planned broadcast of the show.

This burnett guy seems like a bit of a dirtbag. When one of the survivor contestants fell face first into a fire, he ordered, ordered, the production crew to not help him or be fired. He says it was because they couldn't do anything anyway, but now this? He's actually going to air this show?

In the first first version of "Survivor" produced for Swedish television, the first person voted off the show committed suicide.

Dear god, thats terrible.

Commiting suicide because you were the first one voted off of Swedish Survivor is not terrible, it's pathetic. There's never a good reason to commit suicide, but if you're gonna do it, do it because of something truly tragic, like this:

* Donnie Moore, 1986 ALCS: With Angels one strike from World Series, gave up homer to Dave Henderson that kept Boston alive, and Sox went on to win pennant. Moore committed suicide in 1989.

Peace

I recently saw a doco on the production of "Bumfights" and all the legal suits that followed it.

Hey here's a new concept: Put all "reality" TV show producers into an indestructible ventilated glass enclosure in the middle of the Gobi desert, with $50 million dollars, a canteen of water and a block of cheese, throw away the keys and film the results.





[edit on 15-2-2005 by MaskedAvatar]

Those people probably had confidence issues before entering into the reality show. It is not Mark Burnett's fault that they committed suicide.

This suicide has nothing to do with the show. I know a lot of people like them- i think they're garbage anyway. Low budget caca.

Besides the fact that so called Reality TV has nothing to do with reality, but with selected excerpts of how to stage reality, the pointlessness of it becomes apparent as a distraction from actual artistry involved in doing a quality TV show. This is at least some of the time propaganda placement paid by our government, and when it is so we can understand the why of it by consciously recognizing how our threshold of tolerence is raised for the unacceptable. There is no morality story in most all so called reality TV. Consider it to be another distraction from more important things you simply must think about, public issues of a kleptocracy, and a dark tyranny that grows daily with each so called law that emerges from Washington DC. I say so called, because too much of it is an affront to either the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and the spirit of the same. In my thoughts I reject "reality TV," when it is in fact "Unreality TV."

Of course one can be sad about the boxer and his demise whatever its cause, as far too many things in this life are in doubt. But it made me think about something our college work deleved. Each one of us not matter how on the fringe of things, nor how we emerge from quiet desperation into outright desperation is doing a political act. We can earn an objective education by granting others, no matter how rejected or dispised their essential humanity as political actors warning others as apparently as the canary in the coal mine.

Originally posted by TheBigD
Those people probably had confidence issues before entering into the reality show. It is not Mark Burnett's fault that they committed suicide.

Fault? Sure, its not his fault. Regardless, the show should not be aired.

What a shame!

I think that the show should be aird, but I do know that it will offfend. Its what you call freedom of creativty, to cancel such a program isnt going to make the suicides go away.