To be honest, as Garfield226 pointed out from TMZ, it is obviously pre-taped, and I would never imagine that Phil would actually go on the show without knowing. I have never heard of the Dr. Phil show being live, and I don’t believe that there is any reason for it to be. To me, it reeks of “I’m going to publicize this, then point out that it is ridiculous, and kick the guy off my show, hopefully other idiots look at this and see how I am wonderful.”
Of course, IMHO, “Dr.” Phil is a fraud anyways. His shows are a waste of time and money, hell, I could be “Dr. Small” and go be a hypocrite on television for half the money they pay him…serious, I feel he is a huge joke.
Yecchhh, I just wasted some time on the download with slowpoke Dial Up, so guess I’ll comment, too.
The Bumfight guy really is a cold Operator in a nasty business, a Geek show, pretty much. He says he’s made millions off the site; it’s sad that people support that trash.
For Dr. Phil, maybe he was up for a dialogue until the guy showed up dressed like him. Taye (sp?), being a cutting edge Dude, thought he would make his point by dressing like that, and got to have his say, basically, “How am I different from you?”
Surely, when he showed up dressed as Dr. Phil, decisions had to be made before he even got onstage. The production staff had to know where to go with it. My guess, from the Dr. Phil shows I saw a couple of years back, is that the decision was made to publicly humiliate him on purpose. Dr. Phil was going to play the hardass social arbiter of values, let the guy think he was going to have a chance to speak, and then just slam him with a public display. It’s another level than just not having him on, or Dr’ Phil just moralizing; he wanted to actively have Taye experience that humiliation.
The way that Dr. Phil put it was sanctimonius, and I think it would have done more good, since the (well-produced) tape was aired, and giving Bumfights the exposure, to have talked to Taye more , and let him expose his own cold self. Dr. Phil should have asked Taye why he thought it great to dress as Dr. Phil, and elaborated on why they are different. He missed a chance to shed some light on what the Geek monger thinks, and why it’s so nasty.
My wife is an avid Dr. Phil fan. Even after watching this video. I’ve never been a Dr. Phil fan. Even less so now. Forget the guy he threw off his show – the guy has no pretense of morality. But Phil? Sweet Jesus, what a hypocrite!
It did air. I saw the show, and I had the same feeling–it was staged. He knew what was on the video, and he knew exactly what he was doing. He wanted to make himself look good. If he really was that offended by the video, he would have refused to show it on TV. sampiro, I can’t remember what else was on the show. I think the bumfights video took up at least 15 minutes, between showing the video and dramatically kicking the guy off the stage. It might have even been half of the show.
I agree with the general sentiment here. There’s NO WAY he didn’t already watch that video, and didn’t already know what the guy was up to. He HAD to have spent hours preparing for questions and such for the guy. Then he goes on a self-righteous tirade that he “doesn’t want to publicize” the guy, but still has the gawl to “televise” this episode? Nice job. He probably brought more fans to the bumfights guy through that little bit and having it get posted on YouTube. Meanwhile, he get to pretend he’s some kind of saint for kicking the guy off the show. I never liked him, and I knew he was a hypocrite, but this is a new low, even for him. I might have bought it if he had talked to him a bit, and then “got disgusted”, but there’s no way that wasn’t staged.
As for the other guy, he’s a reprehensible, piece of garbage… making millions for paying a bum $20 here and there? Of course he’s a hypocrite, but anyone could have told you that. I didn’t need Dr. Phil to tell me how to think about it. Hell, I hadn’t even HEARD of him before that clip. As for why he’s not in jail, I can only imagine he gets waivers before he does anything; besides, what’s a homeless person going to do… hire a lawyer and sue him? MAYBE a group like the ACLU might, but if he has waivers, what could they do?
I’m a little confused. I can see how Dr. Phil is a hypocrite, but how is the Bum Fights guy a hypocrite? He doesn’t even lie about what he does – give small amounts of money to desperate people to be entertainment for the masses to their own severe self-detriment. There’s nothing particularly more despicable about him compared to thousands others like him.
Pimps, carnies, bookies, cock fight promoters, unscrupulous underground pornographers, grifters, missionaries, proselytizers, predatory lenders, drug dealers, DMV personnel, internet pharmacies, mattress salesmen and many many many others who use their position of relative power to hurt and take advantage of others for profit or entertainment, and it seems like the entire world is picking on the BumFights dude like he’s the fucking antichrist! Yeah the guy is a class A douchebag, but that didn’t make him a millionaire. Your and everybody else’s reaction, if it was anything other than “Meh, so what?”, made him a millionaire. :smack:
Really. Sure, the guy making the videos is an asshole. But this just confirms my belief that Dr. Phil is at least among the top 5 biggest douchebags on the planet. “Refuse to publicize this guy” indeed. :rolleyes:
Actually, I’m not particularly outraged by the other guy… what I was trying to portray was “yes, he’s human garbage, but I’m not shocked by him”. Why I say he’s a hypocrite though, is because he claims to be helping the homeless, when he’s really just taking advantage of them and using them as a stepping stone to make millions. I’d be a lot more impressed by him if he, say, got them a nice meal, bought them some new clothes, and took them to a doctor after they ate a raw frog or pulled out their teeth.
You’re absolutely right, guys like him, who prey on the people, are a dime a dozen, so while he’s a despicable human, it’s not a shock that he’s out there. If he hadn’t agreed to do the show, Dr. Phil could have easily found a hundred other people, equally as pitiful, and gotten the same stupid point across.
Essentailly, I wanted to say “Go Dr. Phil! You just made this guy a bunch of money, and made yourself look like a pompous ass by pretending to be outraged by him.” :smack:
I’ve interpreted those statements as being tongue-in-cheek. I think the guy had some misguided goal a priori to reveal Dr. Phil as the same kind of scum he is in the first place.
The Fumbites guy has simply ripped off the tasteless, sad Jackass body of work. The difference is that Johnny Knoxville and his pack of weirdos are stuntmen, and they’re paid handsomely. The Fumbites jerk pays his temporary workers twenty bucks to hurt themselves, and he never sees them again.
Who is hurt by his cute little scheme? You are. His immediate victims are the homeless guys he takes advantage of, but the expense quickly comes around to you. They get busted up for twenty bucks, and they take their injuries to an emergency room. The hospital can’t turn them away, but the bum can’t pay. The hospital has no choice but to charge more to the patients who have insurance. That’s you and me.
He makes millions, and we pick up the tab. Pretty slick, eh?
As for Dr. Phil, he’s a charlatan. I don’t care about his image.
A lot of independent looking mattress stores in my area are actually a loosely organized cartel that
a) Marks up prices upwards of 300-400%
b) If you leave a store, your description and prices quoted are communicated to other stores in the area. They then proceed to undersell “the other guy” (actually themselves)
c) There’s an elaborate commission sharing/distribution system between individual salesmen. People who “spot the mark” get a cut, etc.
I just watched the footage and I have to say that I agree with the people who say that Dr. Phil was being hypocritical (especially know it was aired). I’m pretty sure he had seen the footage before and if he hadn’t I can’t imagine didn’t have a general idea how bad it would be.
The bumfights guy seemed like he went on the show specifically to go after Dr Phil. And frankly, having seen that footage and some other shows of his, I think Dr. Phil deserved it. My take on the situation is that the bumfights guy is in a line of business where he profits from the pain and humiliation of other (poor) people while Dr. Phil is in a line of business where he profits from the pain and humiliation of other (less poor but still not rich) people. The bumfights guy probably gets a lot of flak from people for what he does and is somewhat annoyed by the fact that Dr. Phil, who undoubtedly makes much more than he ever will doing something quite similar, gets almost no flak. So he goes on the show to prove a point but Dr. Phil shuts him down superquick.
Actually Rufus the Stunt Bum is an even worse piece of shit.
He willingly participated in beating up other homeless people and broke one of their legs.
He then tried to sue the guys behind BumFights for “exploiting” him.
Rufus is the prototypical drunk, dangerous, insane bum that should be locked up or taken out back and shot.
Yeah the guy is a class A douchebag, but that didn’t make him a millionaire. Your and everybody else’s reaction, if it was anything other than “Meh, so what?”, made him a millionaire. :smack: