Reality TV Gives Corporate America a Big Wet Kiss

from LaborNotes:



Reality TV Gives Corporate America a Big Wet Kiss
by Mark Brenner | Thu, 02/11/2010 - 4:26pm


Want to know what chutzpah means? Look no further than TV's newest reality show, “Undercover Boss.” Apparently the titans of industry aren't satisfied that they burned our economy to the ground and got nothing but a slap on the wrist from Washington. They want us to like them, too.

“Undercover Boss,” which debuted on CBS after Sunday’s Superbowl, is a corporate charm offensive. For one week the CEO of a major company goes "undercover," performing a variety of jobs at the bottom of the corporate ladder.

CEO-AS-HERO

Over the course of an hour we discover that the CEO is really a nice guy. We see just how ready top brass is to reward hard-working employees and to clean up problems on the front lines.

It's a blast from the Reagan-era past: CEO-as-hero.

The first episode features Larry O'Donnell, president of Waste Management, the nation's largest trash and recycling company.

In fine superhero tradition, O'Donnell adopts an alter ego (that sounds strangely like a porn star)—Randy Lawrence—and spends a day each doing various jobs at Waste Management: sorting recycling; picking up trash at a landfill; cleaning port-a-potties in an amusement park; shadowing the manager of a landfill; and riding shotgun on a residential garbage truck route.

STIFF BLUE COLLAR

You can't help but enjoy O'Donnell's ineptitude doing blue-collar work. He struggles to snatch cardboard off a recycling conveyor belt in Syracuse while his supervisor chuckles that he's working on the slowest line in the building. Almost on cue, O'Donnell misses a big piece and completely jams the machine, forcing everyone on an early lunch break. .........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.labornotes.org/blogs/2010/02/reality-tv-gives-corporate-america-big-wet-kiss

The narrative was heavily scripted to aid Hooters in starting some fake public image makeover. They made the CEO look like he hit some form of enlightenment (like he couldn't figure out Hooters women were exploited before) and he was a nice guy going to fix all their wrongs.

Its a bunch of shit. Its a big commercial for the company.