President’s Star Charity Show

Personally, I think that the President's Star Charity Show should not have artistes to perform stunts to milk the public’s compassion for more generous donations as it defeats the purpose of hosting the show in the first place. The ultimate objective of the President's Star Charity show is to gain a large amount of donations from the Singapore public to support people with great medical, economical or social need. The show has many events and performances to reach to the viewers hearts and show them how deprived these people are and how our every contribution can help their lives tremendously. However, instead of having simple performances such as singing or dancing, it is including more outstanding shows such as stunts from the artiste to grasp the attention of the viewers. On the other hand, this move would also create a counter-effect which would reduce the amount of support from the public for the needy.

For example in 20^th July in 2008, there was a monk, Venerable Ming Yi, from Ren Ci Hospital and Medical Centre who made a radical move in order to get the attention of the public. He walked across parallel beams which were 66 storeys high. That was not all, in the past, Ming Yi also did many dare devil performances such as immersing himself in a container full of ice, balancing on a five-storey high structure for nearly two hours and pulling himself up 23 storeys using a rope and pulley. He did all this in the name of his organization and his patients.

Attempts to raise fund for the needy in such a way is actually counterproductive as most people would see these actions not as brave but rather idiotic because they are risking their lives just to grab the audience’s attention. Hence, this would bring shame and defame the charity organization’s image which would then lead to a decrease in support from the masses and hence, shortage in funds to improve the living standards of the poor. Also, as these performances are highly dangerous and are not healthy to be seen by children, to avoid such occurrences, people would tend to not support the organization at all.

Besides that, even if these stunts were able to gain donations, this is due to the hunger of the public for more stunts in shows instead of true care for the needy of Singapore. These performances mislead the masses and also alter the ultimate objective of the President’s Star Charity Show as it becomes an event to entertain others through any means necessary than to reach into their hearts and get them to empathize the poor and needy. Therefore, when this show is unable to meet to the demands of the public, it would then fail and obtaining funds would then become an issue. However, if these shows could leave a mark in the hearts of the public, then even though the show may not be as exciting and fascinating as the one in previous years, the public would not fail to support these organizations because they already know the importance of their donations no matter how minute it may seem.

However, I do agree that with these stunts performed by the artistes, the President’s Star Charity Show would be able to get more viewers and hence, spread their ideas more quickly and effectively. Without these attention grabbing shows, most people would not even bother to watch the show, therefore, leading to large loss in funding and inability to spread the idea that help is needed.

Hence, I think that one or two stunts would be sufficient for making people start watching the show but the main content should be to show how much the public’s support is needed.