Extreme Makeover-Propaganda Edition

[Lorien]

Rarely does Extreme Makeover: Home Edition build new homes for people who truly need one. Often it's families who lost a member to an illness, or have a family member fighting cancer who live in homes that are already far nicer than most of ours. Therapy and help with medical bills would help-but a McMansion?

This week they renovate a free clinic in Hollywood (OK-that's a good idea), and a home of an "American Hero"; an unfortunate kid who lost his legs to a roadside bomb in Iraq "It's an honor to do this for someone who put his life on the line for our freedom" (well, he signed up to protect our freedom, but sadly that isn't what he was doing in Iraq). Now they're showing Pickles handing out goods to the homeless in NOLA one month too late and praising her as if she were the angel of mercy incarnate. PLEASE ABC-if you want to do something worthwhile, build some homes for the HOMELESS, not the comfortable and camera ready!

Rant off.

[waiting for hope]

1. No Offense...

Delete

[walldude]

3. Uh.. they are.. try going to their web page

http://www.habitat.org/default2.aspx

[waiting for hope]

4. Delete

[Lorien]

5. Nice thread hijacking . They are, in fact:

http://muzica.moldova.org/stiri/eng/7214/

http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051210/COMMUNITY/512100365/1065

[RockaFowler]

2. I'm sorry to say

This show has gone to sappy for my taste. I used to love it, now it's just awful. Pickles was the last straw for me. Blech!:puke:

[Lorien]

7. The flag waving and scenes of weeping children have gone over the top

It is awful when a kid loses a parent, but I don't see how wrecking the home that they shared with that parent will truly help matters. Many of the homes that they demolish are much nicer than my own,but I wouldn't want my leaky home torn down when I know that there are SO MANY people out there without even a leaky roof over their heads!

My cousin has an office on the ABC lot that is down the hall from EMHE. Part of me wants to stop by someday and plead with them to start focusing on families who are truly in dire straights. I have a feeling that they avoid showing extreme hardship because it's not the America those in power want us to see. :-(

[emulatorloo]

6. I'll watch anything that features Brian Wilson performing

but of course I tivo'd it and fastforwarded it to Brian's 1 minutish appearance. And then deleted it.

[JI7]

8. is it true that the part with Pickles was scripted ?

i heared the people were told to put on a certain look when she would appear.

also, if anyone remembers there was one show from last year i think. it was a family that took in a bunch of orphans.

but i think the orphans are now suing abc because they say abc manipulated things and that the family that took them in did so only to try to get on extreme makeover. but once they got on they ended up kicking the kids out of the home.

it's just so disgusting.

i think some of the shows i saw i could understand. it was about helping those who really needed it. but as you say it has changed somewhat and i have not seen it in a long time.

it would be much better if the concept focused on home remodeling or design rather than trying to manipulate people's emotions with those sappy stories.

and if they would truly help people by providing what they really needed to get by each day. of course the big guys at ABC want to make yout hink they care with these shows while supporting the chimp and any policies that help them.

[Lorien]

9. The wretched excess of it all is troubling

it's a shame to tear down a charming old bungalow instead of renovating it, and the monstrous McMansions they create in their place often look absurd among the other homes in the neighborhood. Imagine the upkeep of those places! I also wish that they would focus on renovation, or perhaps neighborhood revitalization (there's one literally across the tracks from mine that looks like a third world slum. Several townhomes and a few tidy cottages would really improve some lives over there)! Some of the earlier shows had some real hard luck cases (like the family whose contractor stole their money and left them with a home unfit for habitation), but these days it's the motherless children/ cancer patient of the week story-which are terrible problems, but not ones that a new home will fix.