Television's Hit Series "The Apprentice" with Donald Trump: Corporate Values, Capitalism, and Competition in the Guise of Reality Television Show 'Entertainment'
The popular television program "The Apprentice", starring millionaire (though often bankrupt) real estate developer Donald Trump, and his various groups of "fired" or "not fired" "Apprentices" provides an interesting mass media-sponsored example of hegemonic reinforcement of corporate values, in the guise of reality TV show "entertainment". "The Apprentice" and its star offer implicit support for, and even a sort of general advertisement of the "rewards" to be taken from the corporate world, that is, should one be smart, lucky, young, good-looking, and play the game "right". The not-so-implicit message of this supposedly merely fun and entertaining weekly series is that if one manage to become a corporate champion, like Trump's "winners", one will likely be handsomely rewarded in the end, much like the winning contestant on this show, e.g., with a plumb job (like those sparingly handed out by Trump himself on the show), and all the spoils that accompany it: material success, prestige, recognition. This show may be entertaining to many, but it also reinforces all the wrong values of corporate greed; ruthless competition, and accomplishment for mere material gain. On the show itself, the winning "Apprentice" recei
But, as is often true in the (corporate driven and supported) world of network television, Trump, the show's Alpha Capitalist, is a fake. After all, Many of Trump's own current (and past) entrepreneurial endeavors fall short of success. To paraphrase then-Senator Lloyd Bentsen, during the 1992 George H.W. Bush versus Dukakis presidential campaign, "He's no Warren Buffet." For example, "$1.3 billion in debt, Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts is going bankrupt, this being the second time that Trump has guided his casino businesses to bankruptcy" ("Dinsdag"). As one viewer of "The Apprentice" also states: ". . . he's borrowed so much money that, if the banks don't stand by him, the reverberations will reach all the way to my piggybank. So we should . . . forget that the casinos may have been a bad gamble? ("Inkwell"). "The Apprentice" is especially successful at pro-hegemonic reinforcement, moreover, since it focuses on a subject that we all (except for those born independently wealthy, or winners of huge lotteries) recognize and experience day to day: work. Hegemonic power of corporate workplaces, and, by association, a national government that allows, and encourages, corporate uses and abuses of power, are validated by "The Apprentice's" implicit suggestion that a high-powered corporate career, the higher paid and more prestigious the better [the stuff that makes the Ken Lays of the world tick], is exciting, fun, glamorous, where the winners are, and something to aspire to, rather than to be suspicious of, avoid for humanity's or the environment's sake, or even critique. In terms of the political implications, moreover, the widespread popularity of "The Apprentice" is especially good news for George W. Bush, himself a Harvard M.B.A., and also the most business-friendly chief executive in all of American history. Forces that
Some common words found in the essay are:
Donald Trump, Inkwell Forces, Trump Trump, TV Fourth, Casino Resorts, American Idol, Ken Lays, Harvard MBA, Alpha Capitalist, , corporate life, popularity apprentice, corporate jobs, corporate values, apprentice especially, hegemonic power,
Approximate Word count = 1263
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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