by Dominic Pettman

Anne Robinson: "By what name is the nineteenth-century novel
                             The Whale by Herman Melville better known?"
Tracy: "Jaws."

Poor Tracy. Not only did she get her literary genres and centuries mixed up, but she even confused her large sea-creatures. But to her credit, she was unrepentant. After doing the infamous "walk of shame" on The Weakest Link game show, Tracy told the viewers at home that it was just a case of bad luck with the questions. She certainly knew everybody else's answers, and was now, as a consequence, "gutted" that the other contestants had voted her off. But there was no disputing the statistics. (This show puts a lot of faith in statistics.) Tracy was the weakest link, and she was now gone. "Ditch the dunce," intones Anne Robinson, the host, "time to get rid of the slowpokes." But as the number of contestants dwindles from twelve to one, the question must be asked, what happens to the chain?

Of course the idea for this globally successful game show comes from the old proverb: "a chain is only as strong as its weakest link." Much is therefore made of "team-playing" during the early rounds, although this inevitably gives way to "strategic-playing" as the game proceeds. Interestingly, the host insults and interrogates those who switch from the "communal" chain-approach to the "selfish" link-approach too early or too obviously. From the first minute of the game the contestants are reminded that all but one will "leave with nothing," so it is an interesting exercise in socio-psychology to trace the subtextual ethical limits of the game-play. In simple terms, why are they encouraged to play as a team when only one will get the prize money? Well, one answer is that it increases the prize money to keep the smart people. But this is hardly team play. This is rather selfish pluralism. It is using other people to fatten the golden calf (which only one person can eat).

The Weakest Link finishes with the strongest link, or at least the most devious link (which, as any good Machiavellian will tell you, amounts to the same thing). But when we have eliminated all other links, can we still talk of "link" at all? In finishing with an individual, this game negates the principle on which it is based, that being "the chain." If you will allow me to paraphrase the great German philosopher Martin Heidegger for a moment, I would say that The Weakest Link "eliminates the very notion of chain, of chainness, of being-part-of-an-interlinked-construction in the face of possible de-linkage [die-lünkage]." Thus, the last person's real victory - apart from the fleeting pleasure of a financial windfall - is in breaking the bondage of obligation to his fellow man: a tedious, even anachronistic, connection in these neo-Darwinian days of "every man for himself."

Of course, the most obviously and physically linked community is that of the Chain Gang in the American South. In these conditions it makes complete sense to want to "break the chain." But things are less straightforward in the wider world of business and social life, where the chains are invisible, but often just as strong. Having watched many episodes of The Weakest Link, I am now beginning to believe that its sole purpose is to teach us to break these invisible chains, which in former times were called ethics, empathy, or even brotherly love.

But before you accuse me of being a vulgar Marxist, I should point out that I do not think this is a cynical exercise fobbed on an unsuspecting public by TV executives. Rather, I think it is a symptom of the acceleration of global capitalism itself, and suggests a quasi-mystical intelligence emerging from inside the system. In this case, the TV executives are just as powerless as the viewers, all of whom are helpless against free-floating ideology (i.e., ideology that can no longer be simply produced as propaganda, whether obvious [North Korea] or subtle [North America], but reproduces itself). Put simply, the profit motive has broken loose of its own chain, and is now training its subjects to smash the shackles of sympathy, which potentially limits capitalism's voracious growth. (For example, those pesky environmentalists who attempt to slow down rainforest clearing because they feel part of some girly continuum with the great chain of being, or Nature, or some crap.)

Not convinced? Well then, consider this. Why do the contestants vote? Why not just throw off the statistical weakest link? Surely this would be far more equitable, both socially and scientifically. And why are the contestants forced to justify their decisions to the host after every round? Simple. Because they are being disciplined. This show is a pure exercise in breaking any stubborn bonds of sympathy. It is a training camp for stepping on people as we climb the great human pyramid to wealth. It is psychological behaviourism in action. (And this also explains the strange whiff of sadomasochism which accompanies the show, along with those frequent references to being "gutted." Anne Robinson herself has apparently become a sex symbol for the over-40s set, and invariably wears a black leather coat.) Indeed, this discipline continues off-camera, as the walk of shame is accompanied by a studio chaperone who is not allowed to speak; presumably to intensify the humiliation. Occasionally contestants refuse to submit willingly to this process, as happened when one disgruntled fellow assaulted the (still silent) chaperone.

Indeed, the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan once listed ignorance as one of the human passions. Judging by Tracy's walk of shame, we may say that he was right. We may also venture that The Weakest Link will only encourage that other rampant passion for cold hard cash, until the two - ignorance and avarice - will have to decide between them who is the strongest link of all.