All language subtitles for T S P E U t T S01E01 2160p WEB h265-EDITH_track3_[eng].1

[bees buzzing]

[bees buzzing]

[Jerry Shue]
In a very extreme situation,

different people behaved
in different ways.

We want to think that
everybody's capable

of being bad but us.

"If I'd have been there,
I wouldn't have done that."

But that's not what happened.

[Glenn Gee] What do you
think would happen

if you took a bunch
of college kids,

randomly assign them to be
prisoners and guards,

with costumes and everything,
and lock them in a basement?

Well, this is what happened
50 years ago.

[montage of disparate voices]

[Shue] I've only been
in jail once.

Stanford Prison Experiment.
[chuckles]

[Cathy Lee Crosby]
At Stanford University,

an experiment was conducted
that became a classic

in the annals
of social psychology.

[Newscaster] Professor
Philip Zimbardo conducted

a legendary experiment
by randomly assigning students

to the roles of prison guards
and prisoners.

The experiment proved
so dangerous

that he had to end it
prematurely.

[Philip Zimbardo] We see
how quickly the good boys

become brutal guards.

[John Mark] Professor Zimbardo
said that evil

isn't just in some of us;
it's in all of us.

[Doug Korpi] The control of
the narrative has been Phil's.

[Zimbardo]
We turn to a man who always

has something up his sleeve.

[Korpi]
The experiment has been used

to explain real-life atrocities.

[Zimbardo] The situation
he was in corrupted him.

[Shue] It disturbs me that
an individual can make something

the status quo
for a personal benefit.

[Zimbardo]
Yo, it's Phil Zimbardo.

[Thibault Le Texier] He's been
telling the story for 50 years.

He's believing his narrative
is what really happened.

[Clay Ramsay] There are
other things that happened

that we should have been told.

[Le Texier]
Most of the participants

haven't been interviewed.

[John Loftus] Zimbardo put out
a nice, simple answer,

but it'd be great
if somebody interviews

all those people involved and
just see how complex this is.

[Guard] One, two.

[Guard] Looking good, fellas.

[Guard] Three, four.

[Guard] So haven't you learned
from anything?

[Prisoner] I want out!
I want out!

I want out right now!

[Guard] Hold this.

[Prisoner] Right now,
I want out! I want out!

[whistle blows, tape rewinds]

[Dave Eshleman]
You may think you know

what you're dealing with,
but believe me, you don't.

[Prisoner singing]
♪ Since I saw God... ♪

[birds chirping]

[Producer] Good?
We'll get started.

-Yeah!
-Alright.

[Shue] What do you want
to talk about?

[Producer] You.

[Chuck Burton] Nobody from the
media has ever interviewed me.

Are we hard to find?

[Eshleman] The interest in it
never seems to fade.

The only reason that
I'm still talking about it

is because people
want to hear about it.

[Korpi] About once every decade,
somebody asks me about it,

and I realize, "Wow,
that was kind of special."

[chuckles]
And I tell stories.

And this thing was
50 years ago or whatever, so.

Yeah.

[Producer] Yet we're still
talking about it.

[Korpi] Still talking about it.

Oh, no, no. I remember...

Okay, it's all coming
back to me now.

[bell ringing]

[dog barking]

[Loftus] In the summer of 1971,

I was trying to find
a summer job.

[Eshleman] I saw an ad
in the newspaper

that they were doing
a prison experiment

and that they were paying
$15 a day.

It wasn't that bad
for minimum wage-type work.

[Shue] It was $15 a day
and three meals

and a roof and a padded bed.

And I thought,
"I've just arrived."

[Burton] And that sounded
good for me.

I didn't have any money.

[Eshleman] I didn't know
anything about prisons

other than what I see in movies.

I had no opinion about them

other than that they must be
very evil places.

[Korpi] I didn't give a [bleep].

All I cared about
was a summer job.

[Ramsay] They were going to do
this for two weeks in August.

[Karl Van Orsdol]
It was being run by Stanford,

and Zimbardo had a high
reputation in the community.

[Loftus] We called him
a disco psychologist.

[Van Orsdol] I applied,
and I didn't really know

anything about it.

[Ramsay] I figured it was going
to be an imitation prison

of some kind.

[Korpi] I needed to study
for the Graduate Record Exam,

and I thought, "Oh, my god.
This is a great thing.

It's a prison experiment.

I'll have all this time
in the cell.

I'll bring my books.
I'll study."

I thought it was
the perfect job. [chuckles]

[Van Orsdol] At Stanford
University back in 1971...

[Zimbardo] We wanted to see
just what happens

when you put good people
in a bad situation.

In this case, in jail.

[Van Orsdol]
We created a prison.

And in that mock prison,
we put a number of young men,

college students
from all over the country

who happen to be
in the San Francisco area

in the summer.

[Zimbardo] We started with
100 people that called us

answering an ad,
and we interviewed them,

gave them personality tests.

[Van Orsdol] I remember it being
presented as an experiment

on how individuals
deal with captivity

in a specific sort of
prison-like situation.

[Burton] There's gonna be
no threat of violence,

no threat of sexual assault.

[Eshleman] They gave me
a psychological profile test.

One of these lengthy
questionnaires.

They tried to see if you got
some kind of pathology

or something like that.

[Loftus] They ask you
your background

and had you ever been in jail,

'cause they didn't want anybody
that had actually been in jail.

[Korpi] And I remember
signing a contract.

You couldn't leave unless
you had a good cause,

like something physical.

[Burton] Out of the 125 people,

the smaller group of people
that they felt

were the most
psychologically stable,

which I thought was hilarious,

'cause I didn't feel
very psychologically stable.

[Zimbardo] We picked two dozen,

and then we flipped a coin
and said,

"These guys are guards
and these guys are prisoners."

[Phil Donahue] What were
your instructions to the guards?

[Zimbardo] We simply said
maintain law and order,

don't let the prisoners escape,

and the control of the prison
is up to you.

[Burton] This was the '70s.

We were all rebellious,
young, drug-using,

anti-war, long-haired kids.

Everybody involved in this
could imagine being a prisoner.

Not one person could
put themselves

into the mindset
of being a guard.

[Shue] I was glad to hear
that I would be a prisoner.

I figured that would be
a passive role.

[Korpi] I imagined that
I would have time to study,

so I imagined myself
being a prisoner.

[Van Orsdol] I didn't sort of
volunteer to be a guard.

[Eshleman] I said I would have
preferred to be a prisoner,

but I was chosen instead
to be a guard.

I was a little disappointed,
but it was still $15 a day,

so, hey, you know, let's do it.

[Loftus] They sent us guards out
to a surplus store

and we were supposed
to pick out uniforms.

[Van Orsdol] I had the khaki
uniform that we were issued.

[Eshleman] We were issued
a night stick,

mirrored sunglasses, a uniform.

[Burton] That was so contrary
to the identity

that probably any of us
young men had ever thought of

as like authoritarian,
rough, mean.

Having reflecting sunglasses
and a uniform, carrying a club

was just like, you know,
"What is that?"

Hehh, wah!

I mean.

[Zimbardo] We only wanted
to have normal, healthy,

average American youth.

[Donahue] Yeah.

[Zimbardo] When we began,
there was no difference

between the people who were
gonna play guards

and the people who were
gonna play prisoners.

♪ ♪

[Korpi] On Sunday morning,
I'm waiting in my home,

and this cop car comes up.

And a guy is in the street
with a huge camera.

And a cop comes to my door and
he says, "We're arresting you."

So I can't imagine what
the neighbors were thinking.

[Shue] They had the police
handcuff me

and take me downstairs.

[Korpi] There's a camera
filming Doug

who's got his hand
on the top of the car.

And they're frisking him.

They're putting him
in handcuffs.

[camera shutter clicks]

They put me in the back
of the cop car.

They drove off, and this guy
is filming the whole thing.

And I really wanted to tell
the neighbors,

"This is just an experiment!"

[siren]

[Shue] The next thing I remember
is the cops fingerprinting us

at the police station.

[Van Orsdol] I remember being
a little shocked

at the level of authenticity.

It was a real event in a way
in these prisoners' lives.

[camera shutter clicking]

[Zimbardo] We tried to create
an environment

which was a functional
simulation

of what happens in prison.

[Shue] As you can see
in the footage,

when the police dropped us off,

we were blindfolded
at that point.

We didn't know where we were,

and we just wound up
in this hallway.

I just remember
being told to strip.

[Guard] Socks off, too.

[Shue] And stand with my hands
against the wall,

and they sprayed me.

[Eshleman]
We would make them wear

these very simple,
scratchy smocks.

[Loftus] A smock with
their number on it.

[Eshleman] It kind of went
down to mid-thigh,

and they didn't let them
wear their underwear.

[Loftus] They would be wearing
a nylon stock over their head

to simulate having shaved heads.

[Korpi] They put like chains,
just on one foot, and lock.

[Shue] It was part of their plan
to dehumanize us.

[Van Orsdol] They became
an object in a system

as opposed to an individual.

[Korpi] There were
three prison cells,

and each of the cells was
the size of a small bedroom

with a couple of mattresses.

And they had windows
on the doors with bars on them

so that you can come by
and take a look in there

and see what was going on.

[Loftus] There was a camera
at the end of the hall.

There was a false wall
and a hole in it.

And if there's anybody in the
hall, it was recording behavior.

[Gee] From your cell, one
couldn't see the entire hallway.

All I can do is hear the noise.

[Mark] At first, everything
about it was uncomfortable,

except probably the sunglasses

'cause I did like
to wear sunglasses.

Especially if your eyes are red
from getting high,

that was helpful.

[Burton] First day, there was
that feeling of awkwardness

to kind of get us
into our roles.

But that feeling disappeared
very quickly

with all the stuff
that was happening.

[Eshleman] I took a leadership
role, deliberately.

Somebody must have been
spending a lot of money

to have this experiment put on,

and they were trying to show
the bad effects of prison,

but nothing was happening.

I said, "Okay, here's
what we're gonna do."

I was making the plans.

[whistle blows]
Morning, girls!

[Guard] Open the cell.

[indistinct shouting]

[Eshleman] We would get them
out of their cells,

line them up in the hallway.

[Eshleman] And I would take them
through drills.

[Prisoners] One, two, three,
four, five, six,

seven, eight, nine.

[Eshleman] I shouted
in their faces quite a bit.

[Korpi] One of the guards,
we called him John Wayne.

[Eshleman] They gave me
the nickname John Wayne.

And it's kind of curious,
because John Wayne never played

evil characters in his films,
he always played the hero.

Well, we were all
against the Vietnam War.

John Wayne came out in
full support of the Vietnam War.

So if you're an evil dude,
you're an enemy...

[indistinct shouting]

Then what the hell
are you talking about?

...you're John Wayne.

[Shue] John Wayne was
a very dramatic presence.

[Eshleman] This time, louder.

[Korpi] He kept doing
irritating things.

[Eshleman] You tell me
who's boss. [whistle blows]

At first, I tried to make it
kind of entertaining,

and I would make up the drills
as I pretty much went along.

[Eshleman]
It was singing stupid songs

or it was telling the guy
next to you that you loved him.

Anything that we thought would
be kind of humiliating for guys.

[Eshleman] We had them
refer to us as,

"Yes, Mr. Correctional Officer."

[Eshleman] We referred to them
by their numbers.

[Eshleman]
So all things designed

to sort of dehumanize
the prisoners.

[Shue] We started out having
fun, laughing and joking.

And they told us
to chant something,

we would bastardize it somehow.

[laughter]

[Korpi] And you know that
the "guards" couldn't hurt you.

I mean, it's an experiment,
for God's sakes.

We're all White,
middle-class students.

What are they gonna do to us?

[Shue] They started to
selectively punish smartasses.

[Van Orsdol]
Just harassment, basically,

and wanting the prisoners
to show respect to the guards.

[Zimbardo]
We're really dealing now

with power relationships

between people who have
some power to control others

and people who allow themselves
to be controlled.

It's a gradual process.

You get socialized
into the role.

[Eshleman] It's almost surreal
when you think about it.

Everybody was taking this
as if it were a real prison.

I think that I took control
of the group of guards

and they followed my lead.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

Woo!

I had just finished
my freshman year

where I had gone through
hazing at a fraternity.

And they would take us through
different humiliations.

They poured molasses
all over my head.

They made me rub this very
burning ointment on my genitals.

I said, "This has got nothing
to do with anything.

It's just you guys
being sadistic bastards."

And some of that
you hold inside,

and if you're in a position

where you can return this
cruelty to somebody else,

maybe you know how to do it.

[Burton] Dave had cultivated
this persona

of this despised, hated, feared
figure of authority

that nobody wanted to mess with.

[Burton] I tried to be
a sidekick to him

in a lot of the stuff
we were doing.

[Burton]
Everybody was in their role.

We were already settling into

this is what it's like
in a prison.

[Burton] One, two, three, four.

We just kind of contrived things

to make the prisoners feel bad
about themselves.

In this very short
period of time,

we were endeavoring
to break them down.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

[Burton]
My name is Chuck Burton.

I live in Mexico for more
than half of every year

where my name is either
Carlos or Carlitos.

In 1981,
I became a tax preparer,

and I basically worked for
36 years doing tax returns.

I decided I didn't want to spend
my life indoors anymore.

So I spend my life outdoors
as much as possible.

This all fits in the context

of a pretty deep
Buddhist meditation practice.

My younger days
were very difficult.

I was super small.

I was the smallest kid
in high school.

My parents made the mistake
when I was in third grade

of skipping me because I was
intellectually so far ahead.

This was a very difficult thing
in my adolescent years

and into my early 20s.

In the Stanford
Prison Experiment,

it was one of the first times

I can remember in my life
feeling powerful.

♪ ♪

[Korpi] So we're in these cells,
and I learned they weren't

gonna let anybody come in
to give me my books.

And I thought,
well, wait a minute.

In prison, they give you books.

How can you deny this
in an experiment?

And there's nothing to do.

[Guard] 3401.

[Korpi] And the guards
kept doing irritating things

like not giving us utensils
to eat and [bleep].

They were making life yucky.

[Korpi] But the job was
to be a prisoner.

And what do prisoners do?
They get to act naughty.

And we knew we could
do anything.

So it was like this
incredible sense of freedom.

So I thought, "Well,
we'll make this a rebellion."

And it turns out the doors
opened into the cells.

So I thought, "These guards
keep waking us up.

Well, screw that.

Let's just put the beds
in front of the door

so they can't come in.

Get your bed
in front of the door!

One vertical, one horizontal.

Don't let them in.

And that pissed off the guards.

[Guard] Get reinforcements!

[Prisoner] Yeah, you're gonna
have to push harder than that.

[Eshleman] That was a reason
for us to get tougher with them.

We could not have them challenge
our authority as guards.

[Zimbardo]
The prisoners rebelled.

That was the turning point,

because then the guards had
a reason to crush the rebellion

and think of these other
students as dangerous prisoners.

[Guard] Get, get them out.

[Prisoner] Oh, man.

[Prisoner] Come on! Come on!

[Eshleman]
We took their beds away.

[Burton] Back up.

[Eshleman] To remove
that element of comfort.

[Prisoner] Whoa! Whoa!

[Prisoner] Leave me alone.
Come on, man.

[Korpi] They beat us when
they took the beds out.

So they won that round.

[Burton] How about that?

[Korpi] So they're not winning
the next round.

[Burton] The prisoners had
gotten together and decided

that they were gonna fight
their way out of this

and mounted a rebellion.

Get back from the door.

At that point, it escalated.

[Korpi] I ripped off my number
and I threw it in the hall.

And I said, "Let's all
rip off our numbers

and let's all throw them
in the halls."

Tear off your numbers!

[Prisoner] Yes!

[Korpi] And when they would call
me 8612, I wouldn't respond.

I said, "My name is Doug!"

[Prisoner] You can't take
our smocks, man.

[Guard] Yes, we are.

[Prisoner]
You're not taking our...

[Guard] Smocks off.

[Korpi] They took our smocks.

And underneath our smocks,
we had nothing.

Me and this other guy,
they chained us together.

One arm to one arm,
and one leg to one leg.

Naked.

So now they're thinking,
they got me, they've won.

I wasn't gonna let them win.

Come on, dogs.

I've always been an extrovert.

[laughing]

A dog's gotta take a dump.

I've always had a lot of energy.
I'm an energized guy.

Growing up, I suffered
a cultural lag

when I was in high school.

And then I went to UC Berkeley,

and it was during
the really raucous years.

♪ ♪

It was rebellionville.

The antiauthoritarian spirit
was part of the zeitgeist.

We were all feeling this way.

That's where I became political.

I used to have wonderful hair.

[laughs]

You got to yell and scream
and rail against the man.

It taught me that
I had a perspective,

that I was creative,

which means breaking out
of the box in some way.

I wasn't the usual guy that was
just gonna go along with things.

I was gonna have my way.

♪ ♪

In the prison cell,
there were plugs.

And in the plugs,
there's a screw.

If you take that screw out, you
can use that as a screwdriver.

The mechanism that locked
the door was on the inside.

So we use that screw,

every time the guard
would go out of the way.

We'd go and unloosen
some of the screws.

He'd come back, we'd...
[whistles]

And he'll be waiting
for the shift change.

We opened up the door.

We looked to see
if they were gone.

And then hobble down
the other way,

naked, and around the corner,

thinking that we were
gonna escape.

So they figured out we escaped
and they came and got us.

[Guards] Hey, come here!

Come on. Come on.

[Korpi] When they threw us
back in the cell naked,

and I thought, oh, my god.
This is not fun anymore.

This can't get any better.
It can only get worse.

[Loftus] Hands off the door.

This one guy was rattling the
bars and calling me something,

and I grab this
fire extinguisher

to get him away from the bars,
and I sprayed him with it.

I thought it was funny.

[Korpi] When the repercussions
were being too severe,

all I remember thinking,
"This is a bad, bad job.

I gotta get out of this job."

[Korpi] [bleep]
This is for real.

These people don't
want to let me out.

What am I gonna do?
And I had to be creative.

So I said I had a tummy ache,

because I thought that
would get me out.

So they pulled me in the back,
Zimbardo was there,

that's where I really remember
Zimbardo for the first time.

Phil is big,
6-foot-1, 220 pounds.

I was 110 and 5'8".

He was a professor at Stanford.

Zimbardo's a fancy guy.

I was intimidated.

He said, "Doug, you can't leave
because history being made,

and you're the leader of
the rebellion, for God's sakes.

We need your input
in this important event."

When I came out of that room,
I had the definite impression

that I couldn't leave
the experiment.

[Van Orsdol] Locking them in the
hole was the most disturbing.

It was a small closet

which was very dark and dank
and very small.

And it would be quite
a frightening experience.

[Korpi]
They threw me in the hole.

[door slams]

I was in this closet
on my side lying down.

And it's dark.

And I remember being
really like,

"Oh, [bleep], I can't get out
of this experiment."

Somebody had control
over my life.

I'm in this emotional state.

[Shue] I could hear him
screaming about,

"I'm burning up inside."

[Korpi] I'm [bleep] up.

And then I got desperate.

I want out! I want out!

I want out right now!

Right now, I want out!

I want out!

[hyperventilating]

[Mark] Being isolated in that
little dark space, he cracked.

[screaming]

[Zimbardo] Prisoner 8612
was suffering

from acute emotional
disturbance.

We had already come to think
so much like prison authorities

that we thought
he was trying to con us.

[Eshleman] The guy's a wimp.
He can't take it.

He must be just a very
weak-willed individual.

Turn around. Push-ups!

There's nothing we're doing here
that's even close

to what they do if you try
to join a fraternity.

[Zimbardo] Took quite a while
before we could be convinced

that he was really suffering,
and then we released him.

[bird chirping]

[machine humming]

[Korpi] Did you see
what Debbie gave us yet?

Our neighbor gave us dessert.

My girlfriend, Theresa, came
down to Stanford to pick me up.

We got in the parking lot
and I could relax,

and I said, "Oh, phew.
I got out of there.

Thanks for coming
and saving me, honey."

[laughs]

You want me to make you
a cup of coffee, sweetie?

[Theresa Hanna] Yeah.

[machine humming]

It was in the evening
and they called and said,

"He's really upset and he says
he wants to go home,

so I think maybe you should
come and get him."

I got there and the guy,
the guy says, "Well, you know,

he seems to be having some
kind of mental breakdown."

I majored in psychology, too,
so I was aware of all these,

you know,
human subject experiments

and that there were
moral problems

with subjecting human beings to
artificially abusive situations.

You seemed really upset
that they would keep you

against your will, and that
made you very, very angry.

♪ ♪

[Korpi] I blame Zimbardo
for doing that experiment on me.

It was a horrible job, and
Zimbardo was the perpetrator.

I was a victim.

Zimbardo would say,

"It's getting the job done
for the greater good."

The problem is he doesn't care
who he hurts along the way.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

[Ramsay] The Stanford
Prison Experiment began,

and I had not been called.

So then I was disappointed,
like, "Oh, shoot."

You know, it's like whatever
it was gonna be, $220, you know?

Ah, too bad.

And I forgot about it
completely.

But then the phone rang
and they said,

"We would like you to come in."
And I went, "Great!"

[Ramsay] So I arrived
at Stanford.

They told me what building,
what door, so I went in.

And I kind of went,
"Where is everybody?"

[Guard] Got fresh meat here.

[Guard] Think so.

We got his stuff here.

[Ramsay] They stripped me,
deloused me, put the gown on me,

and the anklet chain, and
then took me down to my cell.

[Guard] ...you guys will be
out here all night

if you don't get it right.

[Ramsay] If you were in a cell,

you couldn't see
anything, really.

I could hear a little bit
of what was going on

on the other side of the wall.

[Guard] Well, why don't you
apply it to yourself?

Inmate 2093, think about
just what a...

[Ramsay] There were things
going on right there

that you didn't understand,

and especially coming in
in the middle,

that was true for me.

Your real communication
was limited

mostly to the people who were
in the cell with you.

[Shue] Clay was
a standby prisoner,

and we wound up
in the same cell,

and we had good talks
about lots of things.

So there was a bond there.

[Burton] The prisoners
were very subdued.

They had already been
subjected to trauma.

And they were not in much of a
mood to challenge us in any way.

[Eshleman] The prisoners
simply were exhausted.

♪ ♪

And they were in a much
different environment

than we were.

We did an eight-hour shift.

We can go home,

reconnect with
the real outside world,

and then resume the next day.

They're there 24 hours a day,

had no idea what time it was,
whether it was night or day,

how long they'd been there,

so you can see why
they would despair.

[Zimbardo] What we wanted to do
is create

a central psychology
of imprisonment,

and that's all about power.

Every prison is about power.

The prisoners have to be
ultimately dehumanized,

end up thinking of them
as animals.

And the guards have to be
impersonal, distant.

[whistle blows]

[Guard] Everybody out
in the hallway. Come on.

[Guard] Come on. Let's go.

[Eshleman]
We amplified it day after day.

It's like, "What can we do today

to top what we did
the day before?"

[Ramsay] The foundation
of the harassment

was breaking up our sleep.

[Guard] Good morning.

[Ramsay] To be woken
at 2:00 in the morning.

[whistle blows]

[Eshleman] Everybody out
in the hallway.

Come on. Come on. Up.

[Ramsay] And again
at 4:00 in the morning.

[whistle blows]

[Ramsay] That is a really
effective way

of breaking people down.

[Prisoners] 4075, 1043.

[Ramsay] And so everybody's up
and you're on your feet,

you're not really awake,

and then they try to think
of things to do.

[Prisoner] 819, 54, 86.

[Eshleman] Wait.

[Guard] That's terrible.

[Ramsay] John Wayne
in particular,

he would pick one and say
he'd done something wrong.

Pull him out,
make him do push-ups.

[Prisoner] One, two...

[Ramsay] He would insult us
in a way that he hoped

would get a rise
out of somebody,

so that then that person
could be punished.

[Prisoner] No, sir.

[Ramsay] If somebody seemed
to not like that person

getting punished,
then pull them out of the line

and make them do the punishing.

[Ramsay] And just kind of
build it up from there.

[Shue] Clay wasn't comfortable
with what's going on.

It was a little too
rough and angry.

[Eshleman] He didn't understand
the drill, so to speak,

you know, he's coming in
fresh from the outside,

and he didn't want to cooperate.

And so we picked on him

and made sure that
we would break his will.

[Prisoners] Life is but a dream!

[Eshleman] Good. Everybody
up against the wall.

[Ramsay] I could understand
people feeling like

it's only two weeks,

but I was absolutely not
an "it's only two weeks" person

about anything.

[Prisoner singing]
♪ Row, row, row your boat ♪

[Ramsay] I didn't think any
moment of my precious life

was worth wasting.

Once I had arrived at the
conclusion something was stupid,

then I was out of there.

♪ Row, row, row your boat
gently down the stream ♪

♪ Merrily, merrily,
merrily, merrily ♪

♪ Life is but a dream ♪

[Eshleman] Not bad.

[Ramsay] During high school,

I wanted to be a great
avant-garde novelist.

I thought that college was
some kind of ideological trap.

And instead, I was gonna join
the Merchant Marine

and I was gonna work
six months of the year,

and then, I would take the money
and I would go to Mexico,

and I would write
my masterpiece.

If someone had said, "Aren't you
gonna miss your friends?"

I would have gone,
"This is important."

I was the sailors' janitor.

What I did was get up
at 5:00 in the morning

and go look at the sunrise.

I did meditate.

I would go up on the bow,

which is a fantastic place
to meditate.

With the experiment,
I do recall thinking

that I'll just have
a lot of time to meditate,

that it will be reflective,

because people will
leave you alone. [chuckles]

[Prisoner] One.

[Eshleman] I want to hear 'em.
Yeah, louder!

[Shue] Clay had been
in the Merchant Marines.

He had been there and done that,

and he wasn't gonna
do this for fun.

[Ramsay]
And I thought to myself,

"Is this what I would call
an experiment?" [chuckles]

[Eshleman] Three over there.

[Ramsay] It is just a mess.

I began to think about how
could I get myself released.

And at that point, I had
the idea of a hunger strike.

[whistle blows]

[Eshleman] Hot dog day!

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

Eat that hot dog, Prisoner 416.

[Ramsay] It's not easy
in a real prison

to break somebody's
hunger strike.

It was a surprise for them,

because they hadn't figured out
what do you do?

[Burton] Our meal that evening
was sausages,

and he wouldn't eat them.

[Burton] Both Dave and I
were just enraged

that this guy was challenging
our authority.

[Ramsay] They did try to jam
food down my throat.

[Burton] He was just, "No way."

[Ramsay] It was clear that
they didn't know how far to go.

[Burton] And so we put him
in the hole.

[Guard] Go ahead.

[Ramsay]
I am put in the big empty box.

I don't think I could stretch
out 100%, but close,

but I had privacy.

Remember, I was also
sleep deprived.

So I was thinking
about my novel,

which was about
the cultural revolution

of California by acid.

It was a kind of fever dream.

[Eshleman] Thank you, 416.

[Burton] Over there.
Alright. That's fine.

[Eshleman] In order to turn the
prisoners against the prisoner

who went on a hunger strike,

we let them know that if he was
not going to eat his dinner,

we would take
their blanket away.

[Shue] The other three remaining
prisoners all said,

"No, I won't give up my sheet."

And I liked Clay and we had
shared a cell, and I said,

"Yeah, I'll give him my sheet."

I thought I was above the game
at that point.

[Shue] Later that night,
he's still in the closet.

The guard ordered the prisoners
to pound on the door.

[Shue] Basically, I just
didn't want to make waves,

and I thought, "Well,
he knows I'm his friend,

and I'll do this just
to keep things smooth."

[Shue] I could have said, "No,
I will not pound on that door."

But it was easier to just
go through the motions

and say something calming.

Um...

So...

So I respect
what he represented.

[Eshleman]
Because of our solidarity,

we were successful in our aim

to break down the solidarity
of the prisoners

to where the prisoners were
turning against each other.

[Burton] I was so angry at being
challenged on this basis

when we had never
been challenged.

And at one point,
I started walking

by this little tiny closet
that he was in...

[voice breaking]
...and hitting it with my club.

[sniffles]

I've never come to grips
with how or why that happened.

[Zimbardo] But the reality
of that prison was so deep,

once you're in that setting,

your identity as a good guard
or a bad guard

becomes really important to you.

The level of aggression
the guards escalated,

they would think
of more and more

sadistically creative things to
do to show that they had power.

The worst abuses
happened at night.

Because at night,
I went to sleep.

So, when the cat's away,
it's time to play.

[Shue] Tried to put us

in sexually embarrassing
situations.

[Zimbardo]
Guards would say, "Okay.

You guys are female camels,
bend over.

You guys are male camels,
hump them."

[Prisoner] Oh, no.

[Shue] A guy would be
in a push-up position,

and somebody else was supposed
to mount them like a dog.

[Zimbardo] They would
simulate sodomy,

their butts were exposed.

You had five kids having
emotional breakdowns.

It was out of control.

[Eshleman] You give somebody
absolute power,

they're gonna want to use it.

And if you make people objects
by assigning them a number,

instead of referring
to them by name,

I don't see you as equal
to me anymore,

and therefore anything I do
to you is justified.

[Zimbardo] The fifth day.

Would you like to see
the rest of the facility?

One of the people that came down
was a young woman,

Christina Maslach, and she and I
had just started dating.

[Christina Maslach] I just came
down to the prison basement

just to see what was happening.

[Eshleman] Down, up, down, up.

[Maslach] And I just got
sick to my stomach.

I thought that, "Oh, my god,
this is awful."

Philip said, "Oh, you see that?"
You know, kind of thing.

And I just got upset.

[Zimbardo] And she starts
tearing up and runs out.

And I run after her
and I said, "What's wrong?"

And she said, "What you're doing
to those boys is terrible."

[Maslach] These are young people
and they're being treated badly,

and there's no reason for this.

And why are you doing it?

You have to stop it now.

[Zimbardo]
We are creating the prison

in which people are suffering,

where the guards are behaving
sadistically, brutally.

At times, even I forgot
I was an experimenter

and acted like a prison warden.

And at that point, we said,
"Enough, we have to end this."

[Eshleman]
I came in for my shift

and was told, "That's it.
They called it off."

And I said, "Oh, so early?"

You know, I thought it was
just getting started.

[Shue] John Wayne
had played his role

about as hard as he could play
his role given the constraints.

I mean, the only way he could
play his role any harder

would be to physically
abuse Clay.

[Ramsay] The only good news was
that they were gonna let me out.

[Van Orsdol] I remember being
quite disappointed

that it ended early
and surprised why.

[Burton] The people
that had created

this Frankenstein monster
were controlled by the monster,

up to the very top.

[Eshleman] Shortly after they
called it off, it hit the news.

[Ted Koppel] Philip Zimbardo,

professor of psychology
at Stanford University.

[Eshleman] It was sensational.

[Crosby] What did
your experiment prove?

[Zimbardo] Evil behavior can be
elicited in the best of us.

We underestimate
how strong the situation is.

These good boys were
behaving sadistically

if they were guards.

[Eshleman]
It was a dramatic story.

He got tons of news coverage.

[Burton] Lots of people
wanting to talk to him,

lots of people want
to hear his opinion.

[Shue] Zimbardo became
an authority on prison.

[Man] He spent his career
speaking as an expert witness

in court cases
defending people in prisons

who'd done awful things.

[Analyst] You testified
in the Abu Ghraib scandal.

[Zimbardo] I was part
of the defense team.

[Ramsay] And then it became
an academic object

because it found its way into
textbooks in social psychology.

Students are introduced to it
year after year after year.

[Mark] He wrote a book.

[Newscaster] Entitled
The Lucifer Effect,

Understanding How Good People
Turn Evil.

[Eshleman] He's got
a narrative to tell,

but he can be a little
more forthcoming

about what really went on.

[Le Texier] I never thought
about debunking

the Stanford Prison Experiment.

But then I went
through the archive.

There are large discrepancies

between the official narrative
and the archive.

What Zimbardo says happened

is not what the archives
says happened.

He's caught into his own trap.

[Le Texier] It can prove that
you can do very bad science

and go away with it.

The official narrative
was a lie.

After going through the archive,

I started to realize that
what Zimbardo says happened,

it was not what really happened.

[Mark] Zimbardo was
disingenuous.

[Man] I'm the guy that
you never heard about

that you should be
hearing about.

[Eshleman] We were all
on the same page

to prove that prisons
are an evil environment.

This is set up
for the guards to abuse.

[Hanna] I can't have them
kill each other.

[Le Texier] The experimenter
is putting their hands

into the material.

[Eshleman]
If you listen to the tape,

it does sound a little suspect.

[Le Texier] The participants
couldn't get out.

[Korpi] He's re-traumatizing.

[Man] Why did you do that
to those kids?

[Eshleman] Come on.

[Man] Have you ever...

[beep]

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

♪ ♪