Cultural Document: Bumfights

The cultural document I chose to examine is a series of videos called Bumfights. It is a series of videos that captures the homeless getting paid a minimal amount of money to embarrass themselves on camera by a group of immature young men. In some scenes they (the immature) creep up on unassuming sleeping homeless people and harass them. The homeless are paid (sometimes even in alcohol) to hurt each other by breaking bottles over each other's head and even making them run into walls for sick humor. One homeless man was even paid to have "BUMFIGHTS" tattooed to his forehead...

The videos capture all of IMY's faces of oppression. It covers exploitation for very obvious reasons (a bottle of Jack Daniels to yank out a homeless man's tooth). Marginalization: The homeless are marginalized into these cartoonish "bums" who would embarrass themselves for the sake of someone else's gains. Powerlessness: The homeless are being stripped of their dignity, and sometimes even legal rights as many were arrested while performing some of the stunts. Cultural Imperialism: The creators and producers are lowering the status of the homeless while seemingly enhancing theirs, because after all, the "bums" are the immature kids' entertainment. Violence: Well, the title Bumfights says it all. The creators use the homeless people's financial disadvantage to conduct violence acts against their own. The video may be funny to the oblivious and the uninformed (think Jan Powers), but to the educated and informed, I need not say more.

*A simple Bumfights entry into the Youtube search engine will bring up plenty of examples. Also check out the Dr. Phil interview with the creator, it shows what kind of person it takes to make the videos.