What I found most concerning about this episode was that the refugee encampments, which were supposed to represent ultimate poverty, despair, and oppression, look a damned sight nicer than bad areas in San Francisco and Los Angeles today.
I guess I would call it as close to that as TV gets. I don’t think I would really describe it as nicer, certainly not a damned sight nicer, just not put together by a set designer and limited by a budget that restricted the number of extras they could hire.
Edit: they also don’t convey the scope of the problem. This homeless in L.A. goes on for mile after mile. There’s a video out there of someone driving through Skid Row in L.A. and it’s like 10 miles long. It is absolutely unbelievable to me how big the problem is.
Oh, I gotcha now. Yes, I guess it’s really just too clean, and the people too sane, which is a result of it being thrown together in under a week, on a limited budget.
Also the show is worse in some ways. They were forced into camps that they could not leave, with no medical care, limited food, no jobs/etc.
That would definitely be some peoples preference for the current homeless, forcing undesirables into internment camps instead of dealing with the issue systemically, but that was part of the horror of the “show” setup.
What I found most concerning about this episode was that the refugee encampments, which were supposed to represent ultimate poverty, despair, and oppression, look a damned sight nicer than bad areas in San Francisco and Los Angeles today.
I don’t know that I’d go that far.
Actual picture of Los Angeles:
And another
I guess I would call it as close to that as TV gets. I don’t think I would really describe it as nicer, certainly not a damned sight nicer, just not put together by a set designer and limited by a budget that restricted the number of extras they could hire.
I guess what the pictures don’t convey is how fucked up the people are, and how awful the ambient sound and sights are. This is a video someone made of Philadelphia at night, and it’s quite shocking.
Edit: they also don’t convey the scope of the problem. This homeless in L.A. goes on for mile after mile. There’s a video out there of someone driving through Skid Row in L.A. and it’s like 10 miles long. It is absolutely unbelievable to me how big the problem is.
I’m not trying to say it isn’t awful. I’m trying to say that they would have made it look that awful if they could have.
Oh, I gotcha now. Yes, I guess it’s really just too clean, and the people too sane, which is a result of it being thrown together in under a week, on a limited budget.
Edit: also because it’s a G rated TV show.
Also the show is worse in some ways. They were forced into camps that they could not leave, with no medical care, limited food, no jobs/etc.
That would definitely be some peoples preference for the current homeless, forcing undesirables into internment camps instead of dealing with the issue systemically, but that was part of the horror of the “show” setup.
LA has 40k ppl sleeping on the streets any given night too.