~*~*~
I have a few guilty pleasures in life, one of which is reality TV. Nooooo ... not reality TV like Survivor *shudders* reality TV like Lockup, Intervention, Obsessed, and Hoarders.
Give me a marathon of any one of these shows and I am happier than a redneck browsing the clearance rack at WalMart.
I've heard mutterings that some people cannot stomach these shows - they find the dysfunction so disgusting, so disturbing, that they are compelled to avoid these shows at any cost.
Then there are the "train wreck" folks - those who use the people in these shows as a gauge of their own worth and value. They find themselves saying things like "At least I'm not that bad" or "How could anyone ever let themselves get in that position."
The "train wreck" folks validate their own pitiful lives by belittling those they see as "less than" themselves.
I take a somewhat different view of these shows. I recognize the vulnerability - seeing the things people have in common with all of us rather than seeing them as their addiction, their crime, their mental illness.
When it comes right down to it, the people featured on these shows are no different than us. They want love. They want respect. They want validation. Yet in most cases, some event sends them over that proverbial line we are all so sure we would never cross.
I have a theory on this ...
Any one of us could find ourselves featured in one of these shows. That's right, even you, you and especially you. It would take little more than an unexpected trauma. A death. The loss of income. It might even be something most people would deem insignificant, but results in the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back.
And deep down? We all know this, yet most of us refuse to admit it. We'd like to think we are better than those people that we would never ...
It's too bad we are so pompous.
Ignoring the reality of our own vulnerability, judging what we see rather than what we know, or even worse, belittling the people featured on these shows? That is disgusting and disturbing.
I have a few guilty pleasures in life, one of which is reality TV. Nooooo ... not reality TV like Survivor *shudders* reality TV like Lockup, Intervention, Obsessed, and Hoarders.
Give me a marathon of any one of these shows and I am happier than a redneck browsing the clearance rack at WalMart.
I've heard mutterings that some people cannot stomach these shows - they find the dysfunction so disgusting, so disturbing, that they are compelled to avoid these shows at any cost.
Then there are the "train wreck" folks - those who use the people in these shows as a gauge of their own worth and value. They find themselves saying things like "At least I'm not that bad" or "How could anyone ever let themselves get in that position."
The "train wreck" folks validate their own pitiful lives by belittling those they see as "less than" themselves.
I take a somewhat different view of these shows. I recognize the vulnerability - seeing the things people have in common with all of us rather than seeing them as their addiction, their crime, their mental illness.
When it comes right down to it, the people featured on these shows are no different than us. They want love. They want respect. They want validation. Yet in most cases, some event sends them over that proverbial line we are all so sure we would never cross.
I have a theory on this ...
Any one of us could find ourselves featured in one of these shows. That's right, even you, you and especially you. It would take little more than an unexpected trauma. A death. The loss of income. It might even be something most people would deem insignificant, but results in the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back.
And deep down? We all know this, yet most of us refuse to admit it. We'd like to think we are better than those people that we would never ...
It's too bad we are so pompous.
Ignoring the reality of our own vulnerability, judging what we see rather than what we know, or even worse, belittling the people featured on these shows? That is disgusting and disturbing.
~*~*~
