Pawn Stars was a neat little idea. You send some cameras into a pawn shop plus a few guys with rare American documents or parts taken off a WWII Naval ship and boom, you have yourself a show. There’s no trashy drama. There are a few lovable big galoots and there’s even a little knowledge thrown into the mix. It’s made the Harrison family rich and good for them. It’s far from the worst reality show on television. What immediately follows any successful business venture? A venture just like it, to come in and grab some market share because America is built on competition. The competition in this case is Hardcore Pawn, a reality show set in the horribly struggling city of Detroit that follows the Gold family around their huge pawn shop, American Jewelry and Loan. The Gold family is comprised of the patriarch, Les along with his son and daughter, Seth and Ashley. I’m not quite sure where to begin. This show would probably be a more realistic portrayal of a pawn shop if it weren’t so outlandishly, stupidly, and ludicrously fake. You’re probably thinking, “Hey, all reality shows are fake, what’s the big deal?”, and you’re right but this show is microphone falling out of an irate customers shirt fake. Instead of dealing with interesting items such as rare books, vintage cars, and the like the staff at American Jewelry and Loan mostly deal with your typical pawn shop fare such as wedding rings, chains, watches, etc. The show is pretty laughable from the opening credits when Les Gold proudly says, “We don’t call in an expert, we are the experts”, an obvious jab at the Pawn Stars folks who do use experts to value very rare items. I didn’t know somebody could be classified as an expert when their method is to run to a computer in the back and look up a similar item on EBay to see what it is selling for whenever they come across an unfamiliar item. I have a tough time referring to that as expertise. Lester Gold is an odd character. He’s an older guy but I’ll give him this, he’s in great shape for a man his age. He’s kind of creepy but what really weirds me out about him is that he wears the same exact outfit on every episode and I’m not exaggerating here. He wears the same exact clothing on every episode which leads me to believe they film all day and make about ten episodes out of it, which gives more weight to my theory that the show is not only slightly staged but completely planned out to a tee. Another main focus of the show is the relationship between Les’ kids Seth and Ashley. They’re both as annoying as the day is long and I can’t even muster up the energy to write much about them. But seriously, they both have this terrible way about them that just makes you want to slap them. It’s this entitled, I work for daddy type of thing and all they do is fight over who will inherit the store, who will manage the stereo section that day, who sells more stuff, enough already. The staged sibling rivalry is absurd and the fact that it takes place between two spoiled brats is infuriating given the backdrop of impoverished people. Here’s my main problem with Hardcore Pawn. Is the fine city of Detroit not in enough trouble without this show making everybody in Detroit look like an idiot? Every customer that comes in is a complete moron who begins fighting, screaming or both. This is all staged as you can sometimes see the microphone on them. They mention Detroit 100 times during every show and then they hire actors to act like idiots. Do the good, hardworking people of Detroit not have a problem with this? This show basically makes the customers look like Neanderthals and tries to put Les, Seth, and Ashley up on this pedestal so it’s the customers who are bad and it’s them who are so high and mighty. The show is ridiculous and one day the fine people in the D are going to realize what’s going on there and it’s not going to be pretty at all.
Article By: Jon DaBove
