The Nine Network's latest attempt to make ground in the battle for 'feel good' television is part This is your life, part Australian story. Sadly, the look and feel of Random acts of kindness is far more like A current affair.
Each week the show's three hosts - Karl Stefanovic, Scott Cam and Simmone Jade Mackinnon - seek to out-do each other in the generosity stakes by targeting good-hearted Australians who could do with assistance and showering them with gifts. In the process the viewer is introduced to some real every-day heroes who deserve recognition and support for their consistent unasked for charity.
However Nine manages to take these truly inspiring stories - the horseman who works with street kids, the mother who assists families with premature children - and somehow cheapen them. The episodes are drenched in FM-radio, heart-strings music, combined clunky slow-motion shots and unrelenting, extreme close-ups. The combined effect is guaranteed to ruin any emotional moment with its obviousness.
You don't have to watch long to realise that Random acts of kindness is not so much interested in rewarding its subjects as provoking ratings-winning moments of intense emotion. Karl Stefanovic can't seem to resist the obvious "How does that make you feel?" lines, and often throws to a commercial with a gem like:
"After the break - what's behind the wall [of hay] that makes a grown man cry -
again
!"
The production is also not above indulging in a little creative dishonesty to try and maximize that emotional impact. The perfect miking of some 'moments of surprise' including the alternate camera angles suggests that some of these situations were re-run after they occurred for the benefit of the presentation. Furthermore Carl makes it seem as though he's pressing supporters to be generous on the spot but their donations have clearly been stitched up by a producer long before - or do tractor salesmen often leave the keys in the ignition?
Random acts of kindness does a good job of rewarding the humble, but is itself lacking in humility. The show absolutely glories in what it is doing, drawing attention to the scope of its generosity at every point:
"What we've done has blown this simple Aussie bloke's world wide open ... I turn a 9 year old girl's world upside down ... Look how one simple act of kindness stuns her - and all her friends!"
It's the sort of generosity that would sit well with the Pharisees proclaiming their temple offerings with trumpets, but not many Australians.
The biggest tragedy is that though the series recognises and benefits some worthy Australians, it completely fails to live up to the promise in its title. The acts are not 'random'; they are very much staged for effect. Furthermore, the episodes miss the epitome of kindness - grace. The show clearly picks its recipients out because the producers believe their recipients deserve what they are going to get. But what about those who don't deserve our help, those who may actually be responsible for the problems they find themselves in? Can Nine's 'kindness' stretch to cover them? Ultimately the program learns nothing from the very people it aims to reward, who give particularly to those who are in the most need, not those who have somehow earned it.
I have no objections to programs like Random acts of kindness rewarding the unsung heroes of our community. However what they risk by dealing only with the deserving is affirming the ideal that blessings are the sole province of 'good people'. The truth is 'bad people' need them even more. God's idea of kindness does not ask what we have done to merit His esteem before He bestows His blessings. Rather, He searches out the most undeserving and gives them what they really need to become whole again: "While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8)
Now a show demonstrating that level of kindness would be one to watch!
