I don't watch a ton of reality TV (other than sports - in many ways the original and ultimate reality TV, in which at least the "characters" have some proven talent).
But I do watch it occasionally, catching an episode of Wife Swap here, one of the Nanny shows there, and that incredibly bogus Queen for a Day'writ large in which a group rebuilds someone's house into a shoddy, ridiculous, unsustainable McMansion.
And while I don't watch their shows, I do know who Jon and Kate Gosselin are (feckless narcissists with 8 kids), and who the Duggars are (earnest, lower key narcissistic oddballs who are raising a double-digit passel of kids in front of the camera).
Since I don't have one scintilla of desire to be in the public eye, or spend a nano-second out there self-promoting, I have to say that I just don't get it - especially when it comes to putting your kids out there for the thrill, the buck, the exposure, the whatever....
I do recall, though, how revealing, how thrilling, when - was it 30 years ago? - PBS broadcast what may have been the first reality series, a bird's eye view of California's Loud family - could the name have been better - as they revealed all to an eagerly awaiting American public. I've forgotten all the details, but the parents divorced, and their oldest child (Lance?) came out.
For a generation raised on the repressed, bloodless, gutless family sit-coms of the 50's and 60's, where "the rest of us" compared our families (unfavorably, of course) to the antiseptic, stilted, measured, and goody-good families we watched on Ozzie and Harriet, Leave it to Beaver, Father Knows Best, and Donna Reed, the Loud family was a revelation. If they - with their Southern California upper-middle class affluence - weren't exactly like "us", they were at last real. Tormented, squabbling, imperfect real.
Which seems to me is an attribute sorely lacking in so many of today's reality shows, in which the principals seem to be witless and talent-less individuals whose sole claim seems to be that they're willing to expose their vacuous personalities and undeniable flaws to the world at large.
These days, we have the Bridezillas - a show, I will admit, I find strangely riveting. If you haven't seen it, each episode revolves around a couple of self-absorbed, materialistic, hyper-emotional, demanding, bitch-on-wheels brides who have managed to convince themselves that marriage is all about a choreographed "perfect day" event in which they "star." The groom is a minor character, almost an afterthought. Anyone who looked good in whatever costume the bridezilla dreams up for "her day" is groom material. (Poor bastards!)
Then there's a show called Wife Swap, which - nasty you - isn't so much a wife swap as it is a mom and values swap. In this show, the wives each spend a week in the home of their opposite number. Opposite number is the key. Think brutalized, burqa-wearing Taliban wife trading place with a mom who's set up a pole in her living room so that her pre-pubescent daughters can learn to dance, and you've got what Wife Swap is after. (I've only watched this show a couple of time, but one of the episodes I saw featured a hippy-dippy mom who visited her ju-ju on a family where the five year old really wanted to go to kindergarten wearing pink and purple, matchy-tatchy outfits. So I observed the spectacle of a grown woman brutalizing someone else's five year old so that she could become a kindergarten free-thinker, willing to wear mis-matched clothing. What a triumph when fake-mom succeeded.)
Wife Swap is of interest, because this is a show that the Heene family of Colorado appeared on.
But a measly, one-shot appearance on Wife Swap was, apparently, not enough to sate the outré Heenes, a Colorado family in the eye of today's camera because they recently reported that their youngest child had been carried off in an amateur space-balloon that they'd built in their back yard.
Although I didn't follow it, the story apparently kept a drama-hungry, recession-weary audience captivated for a while last week. With nothing better to do, a nation turned its lonely eyes to the spectacle of a flying-saucer shaped balloon floating along with what may have been a six year old boxed in in the basket tethered beneath it. (Oh, the humanity...)
The good news was that the child - Falcon Heene - was safe and sound. The bad news: the search and rescue efforts cost a boat-load (or is it a space ship load?). And "the authorities" now believe that the entire episode was a hoax designed to attract enough attention to garner the Heene family their own reality series (about a cool, out-there, storm-chasing, space-shipping, stuff-inventing family).
I do not get it.
I do not get why consenting adults would want some ridiculous chop-shopped version of their "lives" broadcast to the world. One thing to be famous for actually accomplishing something - winning an election, hitting a lot of home runs, building an empire, or even starring in a non-funny, tacky sit-com - but to be "famous for being famous"?
Say what?
And to subject your children to this sort of falsity and scrutiny?
I really do not get it.
Sorry, this is prostitution of the worst order, and leaves me asking 'what does it profit a family if they gain a matching wardrobe of designer outfits and lose their authentic family life and whatever shred of decency they might have had?'
Who knows what will happen with the Heenes.
Will they go to jail? Get their reality show? A little of both?
I remember watching TV in the 50's and 60's, and questioning just who these families were that were depicted. Nobody I knew. (I was an adult before I realized that not all Protestants lived like Ozzie and Harriet, or the Andersons on Father Knows Best.)
When "movie stars" (or politicians or famous athletes) were interviewed on TV, they fed us this pabulum version of their lives: everything was nicey-nice, well-ordered, too good to be true.
Of course, those smiley-face interviews were too good to be true.
But, to tell you the truth, I'd just as soon see some fluff interview with Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball as watch the Heene family storm chase, invent, or sail their six year old into the ozone layer.
Our culture has been injected with an appalling dose of narcissistic, not particularly talented "just plain folks" who believe that, because of their willingness to "tell all" - or let the camera train its sights on them - they are worthy of both fame and fortune.
And apparently they are.
Doing it to and for yourselves as adults is one thing. (It's an appalling and ridiculous thing, but it's just one thing.) Doing it to (not for) your children is quite another.
Whether the Heenes are ultimately prosecuted, jailed, and fined for their balloon boy shenanigans is beside the point.
What is is with people that they are willing to subject their little ones to the eye of a manipulative and unforgiving camera?
I know it's a tough economy out there, but why don't you think twice about what you may be doing to your kids?
And Mr. and Mrs. Heene: Sure, it's a tough economy out, but here's a bit of Pink Slip advice. Get off your arse and get a job.
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