Brent Buckman Syndrome

This post may be two years to late, but I feel I need to write about a certain syndrome in society, that I call "Brent Buckman syndrome". In 2006 Brent Buckman was a contestant in the fifth season of the apprentice. Never in the history of this show, has one person been treated so poorly.

Brent was an overweight, 40 something lawyer with glasses, who became a scapegoat for the other businessmen and woman on the show. From day one he was not taken seriously, all due to his appearance. Now perhaps this was part of a plan of the show producers, all the other contestants seem to be straight out of supermodel school, and he looked like the odd one out.

It all started on day one of the show, Donald Trump, made two of the contestant's, team leader's and asked them to pick sides, well they started to choose, they picked someone who ran a sticker company based on the web, then they picked in their own words, "The good looking guy in the nice suit" it went on and on, and guess who was picked last? The guy who should of gotten picked first, the lawyer with nearly 20 years experience at a top firm, Brent Buckman.

Brent was then basically shoved aside, as he gave his ideas, they were waved off, before one task, no one was coming up with any ideas, Brent suggested, that the team should go out in NY with shaving cream on their faces, (for promotion for a razor) he had his head bitten off for this idea, when another team member suggested, why not go out with dressing gowns on, that team member was applauded.

One of his female teammates, accused him of harassment because , Brent had the nerve to stand up to her, when she wasn't giving him any task to do. Yet when someone else said "I wish her brain was bigger than her boobs" nothing was said.

As all the teammates were high fiving each other, like people at a Borat convention, the most skilled one was left out in the cold. As one Blogger said, it was almost like Lord of the Flies, with Brent playing the part of Piggy.


Well it all came to a head, on the fourth episode of the series, the Team was asked to design a advert for a cereal company, while they were all watching a graphic designer, do his work, they started to pitch ideas, as soon as Brent opened his mouth, the team leader, rolled her eyes, and said to Brent "Too many cooks, I want you to sort out what clothes we have to wear for the presentation"

Brent who wanted to do the Presentation, but was then told he was too fat, finally snapped and rightfully confronted his team leader, he told her the truth, he said it was disgusting treatment and someone with his experience shouldn't have to put up with it. Her reply showed what a Classless act she was, she said "I'm a multimillionaire, what do you earn, 100k a year?"

The team lost the task because of a poorly designed ad, and Brent after being bullied for four tasks, went postal in the board room, in front of Mr Trump, and to Mr Trump's discredit, he had no idea what was going on, he saw Brent as Brent's teammates did, as a fat goof who had no talent, and he fired him.

Some say if Brent hadn't snap, he wouldn't of got fired, but I think we all would of done the same thing had we been treated like him. When treated shabbily, people do this, its not really a syndrome but human nature I guess.

Poor Brent, if he had of looked liked Sean or Lee, he would be working for Trump right now, but because of his so called teammates judging him by his appearance, he isn't, and thanks to manipulate editing, Brent will be known as a overweight Homer Simpson goofball type person, instead of the brilliant business man he is.

Posted in: Reality TV