Is Charles Van Doren really at fault?
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jbartelone — 18 years ago(December 14, 2007 01:51 AM)
Well,
My hatred has always been more directed at Barry and Enright along with other producers who played along with the charade. It seems like they should have been punished more severely than public humiliation and an exile from TV for 20 years. But than again, what could have been done? At that time, (and not until 1961) did Congress make it a federal offense to rig a game show.
However, having said that, I will always resent Van Doren for why he played along with the charade. This is because he was born with a golden spoon in his mouth and while "likable," there is another side of him that makes me think, "You pompous SOB!" Maybe my feelings would be different if Charlie had to work for what he wanted like Herb did. Stemple was 100 times more sincere and genuine than Van Doren ever was. Take away the Van Doren family connection and he would have been nothing. I LOVE Herb's comment in the movie, "Van Doren wouldn't know the answer to a beep doorbell if you didn't give it to him!" My father had watched Twenty One in the 50's and spotted Van Doren's "acting" back then. You look at the clips of the original show on You Tube, and the fraud is SOOOOO painfully obvious!
Joe -
Earthbjorn — 18 years ago(December 25, 2007 06:37 PM)
The true scam is how much money ends up in the hands of a select few who. I hate to see billions of dollars locked up in networks and executives who spend millions of dollars on a cheesy movie or silly game show and get pay checks that make the president's salary look like a welfare case when most communities can't afford decent teachers for their schools.
What's frustrating though is that they are not really breaking or even bending any laws, or doing anything wrong and when we attempt to regulate the business we only find that we threaten the freedoms we so desperately cherish.
The 'capitalists' have found ( and there is nothing inherently wrong with this ) that they can take spectators for all their worth and do it on a national scale.
We simply need to find a way to channel this power for good instead of useless endeavors. We need some type of system that puts the citizens in charge. There might not be such a system, but on the other hand the answer might be right in front of us.
When it comes to having the people choose our president, most don't know who to vote for, and dont see how it matters one way or another. We have fallen into a system that separates the person from his nation.
Its amazing how a show like American Idol can inspire more votes than a presidential election, but there IS a reason. American Idol and other reality voting shows test their applicants and let the viewer get to know them. They also do something invaluable which the elections dont: that is they give EVERYONE an equal chance. How many of us actually get a good shot at becoming president? American Idol gives the average American the chance to be a super star. If Simon and Randy can interview tens of thousands of applicants for something as unimportant as a singer, why cant we get someone to do it to find the next president. If we allowed thousands of people to apply and go on tv and state their case, then gave them some tests and allowed them to show us who they are and what they can do for us, I bet more people would vote and there would be more of a chance of finding someone that could really make a difference for our nation.
Now I realize that pulling someone off the streets and putting them in charge of our nation is not necessarily the brightest thing to do, But perhaps we could invent an office of an advisory sort, or perhaps even a council. Call it the Peoples advisory to the Nation or the Democratic Council or something like that. But at least it creates a path for ideas from the bottom to reach the top without giving all the bigwigs a chance to shoot it down or bury it with paper work. -
shurbanm — 14 years ago(November 14, 2011 10:31 AM)
The problem is human nature and most humans are greedy and inherently sociopathic. Or at least the ones that are rise to the top.
So no system works. Democracy or totalitarian systems are all equally corrupt and end up pretty much the same -
hodie — 18 years ago(December 27, 2007 10:19 AM)
Of course he should have been held accountable. I think that HE even thought he should be held accountable. He knew that what he was doing was wrong, and even said as much later on in the film.
God save Donald Duck, vaudeville and variety -
blackhawkswincup2010 — 18 years ago(February 15, 2008 09:31 AM)
The thing about Van Doren is that he has spent his entire life trying to get past this episode. Fiennes only got a look at him by going to his house in Connecticut and pretending to be a lost motorist looking for directions. He wanted nothing to do with this film, unlike Herb Stempel, who got an uncredited cameo as one of the former contestants interviewed by Goodwin.
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canuckteach — 17 years ago(May 22, 2008 05:26 PM)
"I was hoping to
get
Television - the truth is: Television is going to get
us
." Richard Goodwin - Quiz Show (a close quote). Well,
us
now, but the Van Doren family first. A proud, intellectual family that despised corruption and shifty politics what a disappointment to see their son disgraced in this manner, like a politician caught in a seedy scandal.
btw: Richard Goodwin's book is a good read.
canuckteach -
canuckteach — 17 years ago(May 25, 2008 07:51 AM)
"A man's reputation is coin of the realm."
- Kittner to Van Doren, dolfanatic! it's ironic that Van Doren allowed the Quiz Show producers (including the conveniently pious Kittner) to 'steal' his family's reputation. Anyway, if the taking of $$$ was not
stealing
, the deception involved was certainly egregious. All those kids running home to do their homework to be like Charlie - only to find out the deal was rigged?
And did you notice how Van Doren begins to believe his own masquerade? At first meeting, he admits that he's only an
Instructor - but after being called 'Professor' repeatedly, he later exclaims, "It's not the same thing - I'm a University Professor!"
The potential harm of TV itself - from its early days - is one of the underlying themes of this film, a viewpoint echoed in the recent "Good Night and Good Luck" with David Strathairn.
canuckteach
- Kittner to Van Doren, dolfanatic! it's ironic that Van Doren allowed the Quiz Show producers (including the conveniently pious Kittner) to 'steal' his family's reputation. Anyway, if the taking of $$$ was not
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Yyvonnelang — 17 years ago(July 22, 2008 07:52 PM)
To me it's a question of integrity or lack thereof. I don't see any grey areas here. Van Doren was responsible for his own actions. He payed with the damage to his and his family's reputation. What would I have done in his place: expose the ruse in any way I could. He still would have had damage to his reputation, the media would have seen to that, but it may have been easier for him to live with himself. A conscience is a good thing to have.
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mixedmed — 13 years ago(April 28, 2012 08:48 AM)
I'm not sure how what he did is any different than acting, I see nothing wrong with it
The difference is that when you're watching an actor you KNOW they're actingthe audience didn't know that Van Doren was acting. That's the deception. -
ancatdoh — 14 years ago(March 04, 2012 11:43 AM)
Do you think Charles Van Doren should or should not be held accountable for his actions? why?
Van Doren was a college professor, and he knew that going along with the suggestion by the game show guys to answer questions he knew in advance was unethical. He wonders what Kant would make of it, and when he at first refuses, he says "it just doesn't seem right." So we know full well HE knows it's wrong at that point.
When he's asked the question on the show about General Halleck he'd been asked in the interview, that was where he decided he'd take part in the deceit.
He was "held accountable" by being fired from Columbia, and that was about conduct unbecoming, not because he'd broken any law.
He also had to deal with the embarassment and shame he'd brought on his family's name just for faking it all those weeks and accepting money for "winning" a rigged game.
He could and should have refused, but he chose to go along and for weeks was the most important part of the grand deceit. Not ALL his fault, but mostly his fault because it never would have happended had he just done the right thing and told the truth.
I see quite a few posts about how Van Doren did nothing "illegal," but this was about ethics, ie, right and wrong, not legal or illegal.
You do the right thing because it's the right thing, not because you can be arrested or jailed if you do anything other than the right thing.
Hank Azaria's character makes an interesting comment"It's entertainment. Everybody knows the lady doesn't really get sawed in half."
But 21 was not presented as a magic show, it's presented as a contest of one intellect versus another.
Van Doren is a college professor as well as a Van Doren, so he's held to a much higher standard of ethics than a game show huckster like Azaria or another contestant like Herbie.
In Allie McBeal's cameo when Van Doren and Goodwin first meet, they're talking about Ode to a Grecian Urn"Beauty is truth, truth beauty," that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
That was a nice touch, as well as a major theme in this flick. -
subwoofers — 13 years ago(July 20, 2012 11:02 AM)
van doren didn't go looking for a rigged quiz show. he wanted to play a game. they asked him if he wanted the answers he said no. they ambushed him with them anyway on live tv, what was he to do? what would you have done and remember, this is the 50s and you're on live television sweating your balls off
i think most people miss the whole point of the movie
it's not jews vs gentiles
it's not van doren vs stemple or van doren vs goodwin
it's not van doren vs the world or smart vs dumb
the point of the whole movie is "big money" has the world by the balls. it's "big money" vs. the rest of us
watch the scene where the NBC president is in the elevator asking why goodwin is the one sweating or when the NBC president is talking about playing golf with the congressman right before the whole "hearing" started which was all theater to begin with and at the very end watch as van doren gets into the cab looking back at goodwin and what's being said inside -
bradford-1 — 13 years ago(July 27, 2012 07:59 AM)
It's very easy for us to sit at our computers 50-plus years later and say, "Well, if I'd been in Van Doren's place, I would've either given the wrong answer on the Halleck question or I would've denounced the sham on live TV." I have NO idea how I might have handled it.
"May I bone your kipper, Mademoiselle?" -
eatmorecoffee — 10 years ago(September 30, 2015 06:14 AM)
To me it was also largely about class, about outsiders (Jews, working class, whatever) challenging the largely WASP elite. Those congressmen who initially applaud Van Doren are of the elite. The one who criticizes him is more of a Herbie Stempel, and that's when the majority of "ordinary" people there applaud.
The guys at the top covered for each other and allowed Van Doren to take the fallout. Which is not to say Van Doren didn't play a part in his own downfall, but he was like a drug dealer being jailed for distributing narcotics while the Pablo Escobars continue to do business. -
nicoledesapio — 9 years ago(October 26, 2016 11:01 PM)
The guys at the top covered for each other and allowed Van Doren to take the fallout. Which is not to say Van Doren didn't play a part in his own downfall, but he was like a drug dealer being jailed for distributing narcotics while the Pablo Escobars continue to do business.
I agree. I'd add too that Van Doren only in his twenties at that point seemed still more or less immature emotionally as well as naive. He
was
guilty, as he himself came to recognize. But to some extent
everyone else
was guilty as well, particularly the executives who rigged the show to begin with.
As others have suggested, we shouldn't vilify Van Doren or Stempel, since it's pretty obvious that neither man actually wanted to cheat in the first place. Encouraged by the higher-ups, both men made some poor decisions; they were not terrible people.
Punishment is complicated. We, as a nation tend to rake celebrities and politicians across the coals for things that we do every day. We think little of abusing them or "bringing them down". But, how do we know we'd act differently in their situation? We might just do the exact same thing. Sometimes, I think that's why we are so self-righteouss about it, because at the end of the day, we're all the same. We're all selfish
I totally agree, and this seems to be an implied message in the film. -
zorak1997 — 9 years ago(April 14, 2016 12:46 PM)
"van doren didn't go looking for a rigged quiz show. he wanted to play a game. they asked him if he wanted the answers he said no. they ambushed him with them anyway on live tv, what was he to do?"
In the movie, yes, in real life, Charlie knew the game was rigged ahead of time and agreed to be on it. He claims he was resistant to the producers at first, but ultimately he decided to be on the show when Freedman convinced him that by being the champion on a popular TV show that he'd do wonders for the cause of education as young viewers around the country would want to study and gain knowledge to be like someone on TV.
So in the end, he did know ahead of time what he was doing, but his motivation (both Freedman and Enright have attested that Van Doren didn't want to go on the show at first) is more complicated than simple greed. -
brinsonmh — 10 years ago(June 23, 2015 03:22 PM)
In the movie, Charlie says out loud "It just doesn't seem right," so he knows going along with the scheme is wrong. Not illegal, but wrong for so many reasons: He was faculty at an Ivy League school and his lies made the real scholarship he'd done look worthless and he brought shame to his family. Charlie also says something about trying to imagine what Kant would make of this, so there's no doubt he knows he's doing wrong. You own your words, so tell the truth and you can't go wrong. Charlie went way wrong and brought it all on himself, hurting academia as well as his family's reputation.
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goldpink23 — 10 years ago(July 05, 2015 03:55 AM)
In my opinion I think he's at fault.Charles Van Doren is a GROWN MAN and knows right from wrong.It's simple to me.He knew what he was doing was wrong and he did it anyway.Just like the people behind the show knew they were wrong and continued doing it anyway.