Reality Nation » Amazing Race » Twinnies Steal Money, Is It Game Play or Completely Unacceptable?

Twinnies Steal Money, Is It Game Play or Completely Unacceptable?

What do YOU think about the controversy?

The Amazing Race was a controversial one Sunday night, and wouldn’t you know it, the Twinnies Natalie and Nadiya Anderson, were at the center of it all.

While booking their flights to Istanbul, Turkey, “the longhairs” Abba & James left their $100 for the next leg of the race on the travel agency’s counter. The twins found it, and Lexi and Trey witnessed them pocket the cash. Lexi seemed on board with the twins and thought it was a good idea to pocket the money, but Trey? Not so much. He said, “You better give it back to them!” Natalie responded with, “Shut up! We’ll talk about it later.”

Amazing Race 21 Long Hairs

Although the longhairs were still at the travel agency, both the Twins and the Texans didn’t say a word about the lost money. Abba was freaking out about losing the money and was feeling terribly guilty, but James kept a positive attitude and was determined to beg for money in order to be able to complete the next leg of the race. The two broke men decide to go to the business district of Dhaka in hopes of finding people who are better off financially. Amazingly, they succeed. A pair of generous women and a man who tells them, “This is my country (Bangladesh), you are my guest,” give them money and soon after they have another $100 in their pocket.

The Twins & the Texans split the $100…

Fans have since been in an absolute uproar over the money situation, calling the Twins thieves, saying they will never watch Amazing Race again (yeah, right) and wondering why the Twins were not penalized. But technically, they did not break any rules, and they ARE racing for a million dollars, right? So is it wrong for teams to take advantage of other teams’ weaknesses/mistakes?

One interesting tidbit I came across this morning was Ryan throwing this out on Twitter:

Ryan Amazing Race 21

Interesting. Was that hypothetical – or did the Twinnies try and turn the money into production? I guess we’ll have to wait until the season is over to get all the answers. But working in reality TV I have learned one thing – many times things are NOT as they seem on the edited shows!

Ryan Amazing Race 21

Once in Turkey, the teams had to choose between SIMIT or SCRUB IT. Keeping with this season of weak challenges, most teams chose SCRUBIT, which took place at a bathhouse, where teams were pampered, scrubbed and cleaned. Hardly a challenge! The gay goat farmers Josh & Brent, and the Monster Truckers, Rob & Kelley, were the only teams to chose the SIMIT challenge, balancing bagels on a large plate on their head while delivering them to a local bakery.

Rob & Kelley were behind from the very beginning of the leg, choosing the subway over a taxi, and the choice cost them the race. But we all knew that was coming, right? Like Jaymes said, ”If you see Monster Truck, Beekman Boys, you know you at the back of the pack.” Will the Beekman Boys be the next to go?

So this week what I want to know from you is this…were the Twins & the Texans wrong for not giving the money back to the longhairs? Or is all fair on competition based reality shows, as long as rules aren’t broken?

Comments

http://twitter.com/branden628 Branden B

Mmm Ryan.
- http://twitter.com/Mi55y MissyZ
  
  OMG laughing over here.
- Rdouvillier
  
  Off topic! And it’s spelled, Mmmm.
Carriebhpn

It’s a game!!!! The longhairs lost it, they could have lost it anywhere, someone else could have found it, that wasn’t in the race and the longhairs still would have lost it. It didn’t break any rules so it is part of the game.
- http://www.facebook.com/carla.estey Carla Bishop Estey
  
  But they didn’t lose it somewhere else – it was in the room they were still occupying. The other 2 teams were well aware of who the money belonged to. They were intentionally quiet and quick to leave.
http://twitter.com/LCPerky Lynda Perky

So glad to see most are voting that it is morally wrong and that values win out over greed/technicalities. Also seen when local people helped them out.

Just because you don’t have to do something doesn’t make it right.

Even if Production told them no they would/could not take the money, the twins could have left it there incase they looked for it but they wanted to profit. The evil laughs the twins had and their shushing Trey are pretty telling about their actions.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=663047656 Mindy Stephens

stole, sto·len, steal·ing, noun.
verb (used with object)
1.
to take (the property of another or others) without permission or right, especially secretly or by force: A pickpocket stole his watch.
spicy_pants

It’s a game for $1M! Sometimes people must play ruthless. If they didn’t reality TV would be a big, fat bore.
Pissed

They should be disqualified
pandapoo

Even if they claim they didn’t know whose money it was, the fact is that it is a poor country, they should have given it to the manager there in the travel agency. The evil twins knew what they were doing.
irishtxn

Unfortunately I missed the show Sunday night! I just hope with all the comments that I’ve been seeing here that Twins and my fellow Texans either get reprimanded or thrown off the show completely! I’ll continue watching as it is one of the best shows around on Sunday nights!
Julmeljen

If the guys had left, and then realized they didn’t have the money. If they had gone back only to find it gone. Then..Oh! Well. Stupid and forgetful. But, the guys were right there in the room. The twinnies took the money while the guys had their backs turned. It was stealing! No diffferent then if the twinnies had gone threw someone’s backpack and took the $100.00. They should have been penalized.
http://twitter.com/DeanoBrown2010 Dean Brown

The thing that annoyed me most is that the “longhairs” might not have even lost the money… They could have taken it out of their bag and placed it on the counter… Then the twins swooped in and grabbed it!!

It would be a different story if they found the money in the middle of the street or something!!

But I thought one of the rules of the race is that you cannot deliberately sabotage another team… Surely stealing another team’s money is a form of sabotage??!!

Hopefully karma will catch up to the twins soon anyway!! They are just not nice people period!! Calling the longhairs ‘annoying’ just because they were ahead of them!!
- Quin_627
  
  i totally agree w/ you…
Elizabeth

Character is doing the right thing, even when no one is watching. It was wrong. I wasn’t surprised that the twins took the money since they have been cut throat from the beginning, but I was disappointed in Trey and Lexi for stealing it also. I expected more from them, based on how they represented themselves.
Charlie B

Press charges
J_chan

I feel as though allowing the Twins/Texans to keep the money and have the Rockers have to ask for money in a third-world country is beyond “ok” even for reality tv. I know it’s a “game”, and TAR has to walk a fine line having the racers go through such poor countries trying to win $1M, but having Americans ask money from the poor is shameless. That is what disgusted me. I’m not so naive to believe that reality tv is real, or that people won’t do anything to win – but the reprucussions of their actions is what is indefensible. That’s what I would like them to answer for – taking money from the Bangladeshi people – whether they were the more well-off business people or not.
- HoH8
  
  u people take this “Game” too serious….its a tv show, they have to show us things that will make us talk so the “Ratings” will go up……I am Positive that after they gave the money to the long hairs that the producer was right behind them giving back the money to these people…☺…
  - EX- TAR fan
    
    You are Positive … ly nutty! Did you not watch the episode?? The Rockers ended up begging people for money so they could continue to race! IF the producers got the money back (which I doubt very much), then they would not have had to beg for cash to continue racing. Seriously HoH8! It is a game, you are right about that. And sure, TAR producers want the ratings up. Unfortunately, their ratings are sure to go DOWN if this team wins. People are pissed! It may just be a TV show, but it airs at an hour when most children are still up watching and TAR producers decided it would be a great idea to show this theft for rating giving NO consideration to the fact that parents everywhere must now try to justify what happened … which is impossible other than to say these twins are cheaters and cheater never win … unless they win this game! Then wth are parents supposed to tell their kids? It’s okay to pick up someone else’s belonging and walk away with them and ask those around you to be quiet and not rat you out?? It was a poor choice on TAR production teams part to choose to edit this thing the way they did … so, for rating this season, they may end up losing more viewers NEXT season due to their poor choices this season. Perhaps the TAR production team is to blame for the death of the amazing race … that is still to be determined … stay tuned to see who wins and who QUITS watching this show all together!
  - HoH8
    
    @ TO EX_TAR fan…..you are the one who is Postitive…Ly Fucken Nuts…..read my comment again….i said that the producers gave back the money to the poor people after the poor people gave it to the long hairs……
    
    as far as children watching this show….this is a adult show, parents shouldnt let their children watch a adult show where they are always blurring body parts out and bleeping curse words they say….if the parent ur talking bout is you…then ur doing a poor job raising ur kids, letting them watch these kinds of shows….i raised 3 children who are now in their 30′s and doing very well in this world and i Never let them watch these kinds of shows when they were growing up in the 80′s……
    
    and as far as you stopping to watch TAR…who gives a FUCK….im happy that u will stop watching TAR now so that ur children can grow up more normal from not having to watch this show….and why are you replying to something that happened 3 weeks ago?…. this has been long forgotten by now and nobody gives a SHIT what the Twins did…so just give it a Rest !!!!!!……
Buzz

totally disgusted in this episode of the amazing race. the theft of the rockers money was the lowest act I have ever seen, and in the end got the twins nowhere anyway, except now millions of people now know what low lifes they are……

I believe the show has a moral obligation to the fans and other teams on the show to punish the thieves, and the fact that the blatant theft of the rockers money went without a word said, made me that mad i dont even want to watch the show anymore! Why put the theft on the show if they are not going to follow it up i would rather have not known to be honest.

for the first time ever i dont wanna watch TAR……and GO the ROCKERS!!!!
Quin_627

even though it is a reality based show, and on top of it, a competition, you can’t say that that was just right..in my opinion, it shouldn’t be because they were given their own money in the 1st place.!.
would you still call it a race if you paralyzed your opponent intentionally.?.
that just shows that you can’t beat the other that’s why you cheat….
a race isn’t a race unless those involve raced w/o foul play and focused only in running w/o incapacitating their opponent…

i hope you got and understand my point…even though they haven’t violated any rule of the show, but w/ that act and you saying it’s alright because they’re competing, it destroys the true essence/meaning of competition…it does not support what a competition really is……
http://www.facebook.com/ckabner Colinda K. Abner

No it would not change my mind because they should have just given it to the rockers instead of walking off with it. Even if they tried to give it to the producers, that was theft and done with intent to stop the rockers.
Meganhawkins526

The thing is though..is youre given a certain amount of money you’re allowed to spend each leg of the race..how can they have stolen their money, and NOT gotten in trouble?
If they don’t get eliminated or penalized by the end of the season, I will not watch the amazing race ever again.
Disappointed in Ohio

I originally liked the twins … until they kept the money! They KNEW who the money belonged to … why else would the ugly one (lol) have told Trey “Shut up, we’ll talk about it later”? She said it because the Rockers were STILL IN THE ROOM!! I am disappointed in BOTH teams. I absolutely WILL NOT watch this show EVER again if those two win this season. TAR production team should take this threat seriously … I am NOT the only ONE to feel this way. They need to put rules in place if the rule doesn’t exist already … just because it is a race for big money doesn’t mean one should leave their morals at the starting line! Shame on both teams! As for the tweet about the twins trying to give the money to producers … I for one do not believe that happened … However, IF it did happen, SHAME on TAR Producers for not taking it and giving it back to the Rockers!!! This was an obvious advantage to the “finders” (aka: THIEVES) and an obvious disadvantage to the Rockers. How is that justifiable in any competition? Seriously disappointed in TAR this year
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_B7PAHCIZ5OTUFZVM7NX3SRWAIE Beave Village

Stupid twinnies. They should have been disqualified for stealing money and in future editions of the race stealing money from other players must NOT be allowed. Come on Phil, surely you see the problem with this kind of gameplay.
surfer02

I had it with this show. Never watching again. The twins were the “straw” so to speak. It doesn’t matter to me what happens behind the scenes, but what children see and learn from. The money should have been turned over to who it belonged to without malice