Someone wrote in [personal profile] spnanonhaven 2012-04-02 06:03 pm (UTC)

Re: Penn Jillette and the celebrity apprentice

I didn't get it either. I googled around, and I think what happened is:

1) On Sunday's Celebrity Apprentice there was a challenge to raise money for charity. I think they were supposed to be selling something, but most of the celebs just called their rich friends and asked them to bring donations down to the sales area.
2) Penn Jillette called the Blue Man Group. They don't care about giving to charity; they're all about the art. They suggested putting the money in balloons and blowing them up until they popped and blowing the money around with a leaf blower while Jillette's team tried to catch it for the challenge. Jillette and his team and the network and the camera crew said "sure."
3) The Blue Man Group brought down 8k dollars, but when the money started to blow around this public New York park area, ordinary citizens began to grab it before the celebrities could and put it with the other charity donations. Because ordinary citizens are greedy and don't understand art or charity. Or, you know, people are broke and money is blowing around, nobody explained what was going on, and this was a stupid, dangerous idea, and the show is lucky no injuries occurred.
4) Most of the money that was blowing around wasn't recovered, but Jillette's group got credited for the full 8k donation anyway and won the challenge. Although, obviously, the charity didn't get that money.
5) Penn Jillette doesn't care, because they weren't doing it for the money. They were doing it for the art, and the people who watched the show who are upset are just too poor or middle class or uncool or fans of Clay Aiken to understand that. But someday they will. Just like he now understands why The Who used to smash their guitars, although he didn't when he was a kid. Anyway, those people who grabbed the money were probably homeless, so that's just the same as if the charity they were raising money for had gotten it.
6) Clay Aiken very much does care, because his group lost the challenge. Even though he thinks the charity only got about 2k of the money, because the rest went to the outside people grabbing the money. That's not fair! That should be against the rules!
7) Viewers complained about the shocking display of complete inability of all involved to comprehend why it doesn't necessarily consider throwing 8k to the wind "art," why tossing 8k cash into a group of broke people and filming them wrestling each other over it seems exploitative and cruel, and why there's a certain irony in watching celebrities patting themselves on the back for donating money to a charity that the charity never got.
8) Penn Jillette wrote an article to explain to viewers that they're probably just too poor or middle class or fans of Clay Aiken to understand why The Who had to smash expensive guitars the Blue Man Group had to blow money around.

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