Message

Social Behavior:

Everyone is party to the mayhem, from prison authorities and convicts/contestants to TV producers/techs and the FBI, whether acting, reacting, or watching.

Consumerism:

Drugs/Alcohol/Tobacco:

Frequent cigarette smoking by cons and TV producers; Breck drinks liquor; references to drug cartels.

Violence

Nonstop: The hand-to-hand fights feature punches, kicks, crotch grabs, cut throats, throttles, arm locks, body slams, bites, head-butts, bloody faces, and broken bones; weapons include knives, chains, clubs and branches, ropes, and guns. People are thrown roughly from helicopters (one is gruesomely impaled on a stake, and others plunge into water or hit land, hard); two men rape a female contestant (indicated by reactions of viewers, and indistinct, small images on monitors). Almost every conflict has an audience: Prison guards set up a fight among inmates, TV producers watch the mayhem with alternating delight and horror, people in a bar watch with excitement until their friend looks dead (then they feel really bad), etc.. There are also jokey references to blowing up a "clinic for the handicapped and mentally retarded."

Sex

Female contestants wear cleavage-baring tops; a brief kiss between husband and wife turns into some groping -- which is interrupted by killers; brief scene in which man and woman embrace before she kills him; reference to "titties."

Language

Frequent use of "f--k," plus "bulls--t," "s--t," "whore," "hell," "goddamn," "son of a bitch," "a--hole," and "c--ksucker." Derogatory uses of "gringo" and "Yankee" to mean "American," as well as "boy" and "rasta" in reference to a black man.