One can wonder whether or not Andy Warhol was envisioning the current craze in reality television when he predicted that everyone would be famous for fifteen minutes. It’s doubtful, however he probably would have gotten more than a few laughs out of the situation.
The public fascination with seeing “real” life on the small screen has been a cash cow for the networks, and scores of shows have been created to feed the obsession. It shouldn’t have been surprising when people started doing outrageous things in the hope of getting their own shows.
When it became clear that Octo-Mom was apparently looking for television contracts, no one was surprised. Obviously she just wanted to take a piece of the same pie Jon and Kate Plus Eight had been feasting on. Since their troubles, perhaps she’ll end up with more than just a piece – she might need it, since her OB/GYN is apparently under scrutiny for helping her create her brood.
Whispers about a reality show on Michael Jackson’s children have been floating around. There’s probably a line of television executives salivating over the concept.
Apparently there wasn’t enough controversy surrounding the concept of parading young girls done up with more make-up and hairspray than most women use in a year, so they created at least a couple shows on pageants. Even if it should have been considered extremely disturbing, the public just gobbled up the idea of watching toddlers dressed in evening gowns.
Then we got balloon boy. Finding words to explain the logic of letting a large helium balloon loose and claiming a child is on board to authorities is beyond difficult.
And the saddest part is that I’m only scratching the surface.
This is beyond a “this is what is wrong with society” situation. We have fallen so far, it is difficult to figure out how to begin to dig ourselves out. We can sit here and say that the regular exploitation of children on television and in the media in general is the fault of the parents and guardians of those children, but that’s just a rationalization.
It is our fault.
We create the market for this atrocity.
We watch the shows.
We encourage producers to find more bizarre and dysfunctional families to feature for our amusement.
We created the environment that caused a six-year-old boy to be used in a ploy to get the attention of those producers.
We made that boy physically ill on national television.
But, we can switch the channel, stop watching, stop buying from the advertisers, write to the producers, write to the networks – we can state that the exploitation of children is not entertainment.
But will we?
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