Young, stupid, impressionable me was really struck by this Twilight Zone episode aired in 1985.
Push the button, and the mysterious Mr. Steward will deliver $200,000 to you, tax free. The only thing is someone you don't know will die.
Thus the conundrum. Norma, the poor schlub, wracks her soul over whether she should push the button. Her husband doesn't want her to do it, and is very melodramatic about it.
She does, of course, press the button.
But -- ah, melodrama -- his last line is that the box will now be delievered to someone Norma . . . doesn't know.
Hokey as hell?
Absolutely.
With a resolution patently obvious?
Yes indeedy.
Most of these morality tales are meant to be that way. They're not subtle. They present the audience with a moral conundrum and ask us, "Would you press the button?"
Well, would you?
Huh?
We don't get the resolution from Mr. Steward. We don't know if the next in line presses the button or not. But neither does Norma. [Cue the spooky chiller music; zoom in on Norma's frightened face.]
Norma, of course, is painted as an ugly soul. An other not too concerned about the other "she doesn't know," so who cares if she presses the button? She does so, she's on Easy Street. Unless, of course, the next guy is also an ugly sould who doesn't care about that person "she doesn't know."
Today's audiences would scoff at the naked morality of such a premise.
And a good portion of *them* would push the button as well. Then, as now, a fallen world.
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