Your Misery is Our Pleasure

13 December 2010 No Comments

By: Darling Nicky

What happened to us? When did we become this deviant society? For the love of all that is good and mighty, when (oh when) did we stop watching primetime sitcoms and start watching the deterioration of mankind and call it “entertainment”?

I used to love the tried and true recipe of TV shows like The Cosby Show, Family Ties and My Wife and Kids, complete with their perfect family scenarios, never-changing sets, and valuable life lessons revealed approximately twenty minutes into a thirty minute show. But now, we have forsaken the traditional family values of TV programming that remained relatively consistent for four decades, and have become infatuated with the decline of the human race due to the glorification of shows like Hoarders, Celebrity Rehab and Intervention (and Sarah Palin’s Alaska, but I don’t feel like opening that can of worms right now).

So somehow we have more or less come to celebrate the filthy, disgusting, almost psychotic behaviour of individuals across North America who just can’t see that there is anything wrong with keeping cabbage in your fridge that is crawling with maggots. Or former supermodels that we once forked out $4.99 per issue because they graced the cover of a magazine, now emaciated and crater-faced because of drug addictions so severe their veins have collapsed and their bodies are feeding off of the implants they had put in at the height of their stardom.

Like moths to a flame, we are drawn to our TV screens when we see family members tormented in emotional agony because a loved one is so strung out on heroine or crack that they would resort to stealing and prostituting to find ways to get a fix. This we deem entertaining! Boy, aren’t we sick! Maybe we need our own TV show.

Why do you think it is that we are so fascinated by the misery (or disgusting habits) of others? Can we liken it to the same reflex we have to “rubberneck” when we see car accidents on the highway? Or what about when we were children? We always knew who the kid was that ate glue from the jar. Why? Because we watched! For some reason, we are drawn to programs that expose what I believe are some of our biggest fears. Remember Fear Factor? We thought it was cool that people were willing to eat live bugs for money; something they’ve been doing in the rainforests of Brazil since the beginning of time, and we gawked at our TV sets when Sally Somebody from Hoboken, New Jersey would pinch her nose and let a mealworm or two pass through her esophagus.

Television has changed. Television has changed us.

Gone are the days when our heroes on the small screen were Micheal J. Fox as Alex P. Keaton, Kirk Cameron as Mike Seaver and Jaleel White as Steve Urkel. Now we share in the journey of mass weight loss on The Biggest Loser, the exploitation of bad parenting on Supernanny, and the polygamous lifestyle in Sister Wives. We could hold networks, television executives, and recording studios responsible for this huge shift in programming, but the truth is that we, the viewing public steer our own TV viewing menu by how well we received the pioneering shows like Survivor almost a decade ago.

That Joe Simpson wasn’t delusional when he encouraged Jessica and Nick Lachey to document their first years as man and wife on Newlyweds. He knew there would be a captive (and influential) audience of teenagers and young adults that would gladly tune in weekly to see what ditzy escapades his daughter would get up to.

I could talk about this topic forever, but I have to run. Intervention is on, and I don’t want to miss it!

Guest blogger Darling Nicky is an entertainment writer, blogger and publicist. Check out her blog at www.darlingnicky999.com.