There are several ways to look at NBC’s “I Witness Video.” You could be flip and call it “America’s Grisliest Home Videos.” You could be nasty and say that if Jack the Ripper had access to a camcorder, his work would be showcased here, too. But you really should be scared, for both television and the rest of us. Because just as Paddy Chayefsky sardonically prophesied 16 years ago, “I Witness Video” packages real death as home entertainment. On Sunday nights, by the way. For the whole family.
This hair-curling twist on the reality craze, consisting almost entirely of amateur camcorder footage, unwound over the past few months as a trio of high-rated specials. Since NBC has decided to turn the concept into a weekly series starting next fall, those specials require a second look. A few of the highlights:
Cop tapes own murder! To record his arrests, a Texas constable mounted a video camera above the dashboard of his patrol car. As he confronted some suspected drug smugglers on a lonely highway, the camera-and later, we-watched as the men wrestled the constable to the ground and proceeded to kick, stab and shoot him to death. His murder was then lovingly replayed in slo-mo.
Cop tapes shooting victim! Another Texas police officer, inspired by the constable’s example, equipped his own car with a camcorder and recorded himself slaying a drug dealer in a shoot-out. Viewers were treated to a close-up of the body, sprawled in the grass like a rag doll.
Copter tapes fatal chase! A particularly repulsive sequence, courtesy of a Denver helicopter news team, showed the truck of a robbery suspect who was fleeing the police plow into a pedestrian with sickening results. Later, we saw police bullets riddle the truck’s cab a la “Bonnie and Clyde.” Cut to a shot of the dead driver’s head hanging out the window, blood oozing from its wounds.
Let’s see: four real-life fatalities-and that was just in the premiere. Of course, “I Witness Video” is hardly the first program to air horrifyingly graphic camcorder footage. Such tapes frequently surface on the nightly newscasts, especially CNN’s. But that’s because they record a legitimate news event, whether it’s the beating of Rodney King or a bridge swallowing a car during an earthquake. As for the tabloid shows, virtually all their gore flows from dramatized re-creations. Now a major network has decided to-you should pardon the expression-break new ground. Under the aegis of its news division, NBC is serving up lurid gobs of real tragedy solely for the voyeuristic diversion of the primetime audience. Throbbing with a nerve-jangling synthesizer, narrated by a breathlessly hyped host (“What you are about to see are shocking events . . .”), “I Witness Video” shamelessly plays to our basest instincts.
In defense of the show, the NBC News vice president who created it reaches for an amusement-park analogy. “Just like any rollercoaster ride,” says Jeffrey Gaspin, “we look for the jolts. And we do give viewers an occasional jolt. But there’s a line we respect. This series will not have a death a week.” True, “I Witness” does indeed deliver more than death. There’s near death: a visibly pregnant woman dangling upside down from the window of a burning apartment. There’s post-death: snapshots of a serial killer’s mutilated victims. There’s looming disaster: little girls running in terror from an onrushing tornado. There’s violent assault: a gay man being savagely beaten by a homophobic neighbor. All this is preceded by an opening montage featuring clips of the Challenger explosion, a severely burned child, a plane plummeting into a crowd and a TV anchorman brandishing a pistol as he prepares to commit suicide on the air.
In fairness, this show wouldn’t have escaped product development without lots of help from the rest of us. One in every six U.S. families now owns a camcorder, and it seems as if all of them want their tapes on television. NBCs Gaspin reports receiving a video showing a set of bloodied palms. “You know, like Christ’s stigmata.” Amateur videophiles lurk everywhere. In one of the more jolting moments on “I Witness,” a Florida emergency crewman recalls getting the word about a nearby crisis: “I heard the call come over the radio that an elephant had gone crazy at the circus. I grabbed my video camera and. . .” No wonder humor columnist Art Buchwald has unearthed a movement to register all camcorders-or at least require a seven-day waiting period between purchase and delivery.
None of that, though, excuses a network for shooting so low. Remember all that talk about a “video revolution” in which every viewer would become his own TV producer? Well, it’s happening, but that doesn’t mean the networks should abandon the role of gatekeeper. It may also be true, as a press release for this show claims, that “the video boom lets Americans see each other as never before.” The question is: what happens to our heads when we see America like this?
In a bizarre stroke of scheduling, the fall version of “I Witness Video” will run opposite ABC’s “America’s Funniest Home Videos.” To conclude that this is Yock TV versus Yuck TV is almost irresistible, except that the word that best describes NBC’s exercise in necro-shock comes from the pits of the porn trade. The word is snuff-and that rhymes with enough.
