Degrading the Homeless as Entertainment

Humanity sucks..it just SUCKS...


Degradation Inc.
By AIMEE MOLLOY
Published: August 6, 2006

Of all the things Rufus Hannah regrets — discovering alcohol at age 14, living homeless for 12 years — it is his notoriety that haunts him. Every time someone recognizes him, he told me recently, he feels “so ashamed.” Hannah, known to his fans as Rufus the Stunt Bum, is one of the inadvertent stars of a DVD series called “Bumfights.” Filmed on the streets of suburban San Diego and Las Vegas, the videos portray homeless people fighting one another, being pushed down hills in shopping carts and jumping off buildings into Dumpsters. What unfolds looks like a cross between “Jackass,” MTV’s stunt-based show, and a cinéma vérité portrait of the homeless as addicted, crazy and desperate enough to, for a little cash, light their hair on fire, pull out a tooth with pliers and have “Bumfights” tattooed on their bodies.


Hannah, who is 51 and an Army veteran, became involved with Bumfights more than five years ago, when Ryan McPherson, a high-school student and aspiring filmmaker, offered him $5 to run headfirst into milk crates stacked in the parking lot of a grocery store in El Cajon, Calif. “He told me he was doing a video for his economics class on what it was like when you don’t have a job,” Hannah said. “I just wanted some money to get drunk, so I did what he told me to. I never had any idea the stuff he was filming would become what it did.”

What it became, according to the film’s producers, was the “fastest-selling independent video series.” Released in 2002, the first “Bumfights” sold for $19.95, mainly through the Bumfights Web site. Soon after, McPherson and his fellow filmmakers sold the rights for $1.5 million to two Las Vegas producers, who have since churned out sequels. Sales, initially modest but steady, exploded after Howard Stern featured the video on air. Within six months, revenues neared $600,000....
Original thread...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=230x1069

utterly repulsive. :argh:

Even the people who were once interested in that sort of thing find it passe. Thankfully.

Who needs a Circus Maximus when everyone's got a miniDV camera?

I hate the fortunate..because they don't care and they think it's funny to be poor. In my life poverty grind me down I am always afraid.And I wish there was no money, no more haves and have mores. Without haves and have mores and take what you can grabs,we'd all have some.Maybe not obscene hoards of things,but dammit nobody would be going without so a few could have EVERYTHING they could possibly want and MORE than they could ever use.I hate rich people. I do envy them. It would be awesome to do a good thing in my life without MONEY putting a fear noose around my neck and making me scared of tomorrow.I sometimes feel like jumping and letting the damn noose close on me ..than,I'd owe nobody else who has plenty what I don't have to spare ,paying on the means to exist...because I wouldn't be,alive to need anything anymore so I'd owe nothing.Death is cost free.Birth is not a choice existing is not a choice why do we pay rich people just to eat what the Earth grows free? Why do we pay rich people who never suffer just to be able to live another day? Why do we pay to exist when none of us had a say in whether we wanted to exist or not? I don't understand this world it's sick.It makes me sick.

Stories like the OP sicken me.

It's disgusting that some have more money than their great-great-great.......grandchildren could possibly spend. How about a legal *maximum* wage (income).

and anyone who would watch this

Story here.

I have a feeling that they are going get a bit of a "real street education." San Diego County Jail is a real violent shithole. I knew guys that served hard time in places like Chino that said that SDCJ is much rougher.

Those two were in *high school* when they started this crap. What I want to know is: where the hell were their parents?

Of all the hair-raising exploits my two kids got into when they were teenagers, NONE of their misbehavior involved shaming, humiliating, degrading, and physically harming other human beings, much less the defenseless, much less for money. The Wrath of God would have descended upon them.

The two "Bumfight" kids (kids as they were then) were raking in the dough. Where was the heart to heart with Mom and Dad indicating that this might not be a good idea on any level?

Yeah, let'em sit in jail for awhile. I hope nothing too awful happens to them there -- better if they learned their lesson and actually reformed their ways.

Hekate
:argh:

The place is filled with violent men and many people like those they exploited. I spent a weekend there some years back and it is a "shithole" and a "hellhole".
I truly hope that they are having a miserable stay there. Perhaps they may modify their attitude towards the homeless.
Little fuckers!

What the fuck is wrong with people? Excuse my language but I just don't get it.