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Helping Hand Mortgage Payoff Contest Helps No One Who Really Needs The Help
John Hancock, played by Will Smith, is not your typical superhero, and as you’ll see, neither is Columbia Pictures.
Whenever and wherever Hancock attempts to stop a crime or save someone, he causes mass bedlam and terror. After an awful business presentation, Public Relations stiff Ray Embrey, played by Jason Bateman–who is always trying to convince companies, as a sign of their good nature, to give away their products and services to needy people–somehow manages to get his car stuck in the path of an oncoming train.
It’s against this backdrop that Hancock, the misunderstood superhero, and Embrey, the good-hearted public relations executive, meet; and it also serves as the inspiration for Columbia Pictures’ own PR stunt, the “Hancock Helping Hand Mortgage Payoff Contest.”
According to Steve Elzer, Senior Vice President of Media Relations at Columbia Pictures, the motion picture company will pay off the mortgage debt of one deserving family, with a grand prize worth up to $360,000. But according to the Contest website, you are ineligible if your home is currently subject to any tax, mechanic or another type of lien, foreclosure, or a judgment.
Interesting… so what Columbia Pictures is really saying is this… we’re totally psyched about our movie, we want you to see it, and just like our ill-conceived superhero, we’re going to piss all over you while attempting to help you. Are you kidding me? (To see the official contest rules for yourself, visit the Helping Hand Mortgage Payoff Contest rules page.)
Just as insulting is the fact that entrants are judged on a measly 200-word essay (authenticity counts for 30%, grammar 10%, clarity of thought 20%, presentation 10%, articulation 10%, passion 10%, and personality 10%). I don’t know about anyone else, but to me the notion of someone authentically and passionately expressing a need as great as having their mortgage paid off in 200-words or less is absurd and downright laughable.
Hey, Columbia Pictures and your parent company, Sony Pictures… wake up:
- We live in a country where a full 2% of all existing home mortgages are in foreclosure because of fraud and institutional greed (with more foreclosures on the way) and you say you want to lend a helping hand but not to those who need it most?
- Come on… get real; you wouldn’t be running this contest in the first place were it not for the current mortgage meltdown and foreclosure crisis.
- While I have no doubt a “worthy” homeowner will benefit from your PR stunt, the most deserving of the lot will not even be afforded the benefit of the doubt that created your moronic eligibility requirement in the first place.
Next time, Columbia/Sony, do us all a favor by sticking to what you do best… making movies, some of them disappointing, just like the Hancock Helping Hand Mortgage Payoff Contest.
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