TLC's Big Fat Bogus Reality Show

TLC has promoted My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding as though it's giving us an inside look at a charming, secret society.  According to the TLC site, “My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding paints a visually arresting portrait of the secretive, extravagant, and surprising world of gypsies and travelers in Britain today. The show reveals a community that lives alongside but detached from mainstream society. It is a community of contrasts, living by centuries-old religious and cultural traditions, but at the same time embracing the flashier side of the celebrity and fashion-focused times in which we live.”

I thought I'd give it a peek the other day.  Maybe TLC would actually produce a show that was entertaining and still manage to be honest without exploiting anyone. After all, sometimes unexpected things happen, right?

Wrong. I knew a little bit about the Travellers prior to watching the show and most of what I was seeing smacked of what my dad used to call the ole happy horse shit.  It was so full of stereotypes and over-the-top everything.  The show was so bizarre that our older child and I sat aghast with our mouths open, glancing at each other occasionally in a mutual silent, “Really?!?"  Even my adolescent knew it was totally bogus.

The show's gotten lots of negative reviews and at least one of the main characters already regrets being a part of it. What a shame TLC went its usual exploitative route with this show. The Travellers are genuinely interesting and if the show was well-written it wouldn't require exaggerations and trumped-up drama in order to captivate an audience.

New PA Child Labor Bill ~ Passed First Hurdle!

News just in:  The Murt Child Labor Bill has passed the first hurdle!  The House Labor and Industry Committee has passed a bill by State Rep. Tom Murt (R-Montgomery) to reform the state’s laws regulating children in entertainment.

House Bill 1548 allows children on television, but limits the hours a child can work.  The bill also makes sure a studio teacher is on set so a child actor’s education is provided for. 

The bill also requires that trust accounts be established for minor actors, in which the employer must deposit 15 percent of the child’s gross earnings. “It’s the only way to make sure a portion of the child’s earnings are there for them when they reach adulthood,” Murt said.  

The bill also defines the term "reality program" to make sure the children who appear on reality TV have the same protections as the children on a movie set.  

“By reforming Pennsylvania’s child labor laws, we will fuel TV and film production,” Murt said.  “This bill gives the industry the clear legal guidelines it has asked for, and ensures that child performers are paid and their health is protected.” 

WOOHOOOOOO!  Great job Rep Tom Murt, Paul Petersen, and everyone else involved in making Pennsylvania a safer place for children to work in entertainment, including reality television.  

After  House Bill 1548 passes into law may the Gosselin children some day be proud that their working here (and not just "playing in front of the cameras" )  started a valuable discussion that will protect thousands of other children in the future.  You can never recover your early childhood years, but hopefully you'll someday become aware of how much you contributed to this and how much help you've provided, even if inadvertantly, for other children working in entertainment in Pennsylvania. 

The Bachelorette Sinks to New Levels of Humiliation

We know The Bachelorette is about as real as Kate Plus Eight, but this is beyond a travesty. It isn't unusual for a young woman to open herself up and risk getting hurt and nowadays maybe even dream of making it big as a result of being on a national television show. It isn't unusual for a young man to trick a young woman into caring for him so he can sweep her into bed, if not sweep her off her feet.  We all know guys like that: They act like they think they're the hottest thing in pants when it's obvious they're just vapid insecure losers whose swagger doesn't impress anyone but themselves. Such has been the case on this season’s The Bachelorette.

The Bachelor and Bachelorette shows have sometimes had singles who've continued on the show even after they realized they weren't that attracted to the lead single, but never to this degree.  Bentley Williams, this show's supreme jerk of all times, knew he wasn't attracted to the bachelorette Ashley Hebert as soon as he saw her, but rather than bow out he joked to the camera about how he only wanted to grope her ass. As the season progressed his rude and insensitive comments about her lack of attractiveness and great rump only got worse. The worst part was watching Bentley luxuriate in Ashley's deepening attraction to him. He knew she liked him and he continued to lead her on as though the attraction was mutual. He finally got out of the show by telling Ashley he missed his young daughter too much to remain, openly admitting it was a premeditated lie just to leave since he had no interest in Ashley, thus using his daughter as the icing on the misogynistic cake. Then instead of Chris Harrison or the producers being honest with Ashley and telling her she just dodged one hell of a wannabeman-bullet, the camera zoomed in on her as she fell into her bed sobbing about the loss of the one bachelor she just knew she could spend the rest of her life with.

“He had intentions to hurt me, he really did,” she later said in People Magazine. “I'm extremely humiliated...How can a man that has a little girl ever treat a woman like that? I wish he'd sat me down and said, 'I'm not attracted to you. I don't think this is going anywhere.'”

Because, Ashley, that's how a real man of honor and integrity would've handled it, and unfortunately Bentley Williams wasn't up to the task.  And neither were the show's host or producers.

Bentley might now try to spin this into his very own fifteen minutes and say it was all editing but it clearly was not.  It appears he really is an asshole, he doesn't just play one on TV.  Ashley might eventually say the $30,000 she got for the People cover story and other perks plus her very own fifteen minutes was worth it, but I doubt it. Who wants to be remembered as the chick someone intentionally tricked and humiliated?

The producers say they tried to warn Ashley and she was privy to “some of the information.” I hold them fully responsible. The world of reality TV has become full of posers, imposters and phonies who think they're going to be rich and famous or just think it would be a hoot to be on TV.  They should have evicted the guy when they realized how insincere he was. Instead, they apparently hinted the truth to Ashley and left her just enough rope to hang herself in front of millions of viewers. As the host and the go-between who's trusted by all parties on the show, Chris Harrison should've stood up and not allowed himself to be a party to this travesty. This show is called The Bachelorette and in each season the single woman is clearly led to believe that all the guys on it are interested in her or they wouldn't be on the show.

At the end of tonight's show we saw that next week el-jerko will be back. Once again, drama and ratings win over human values.

Who's Ultimately Responsible For the Exploitation?

Mickey McKean posted this comment during our last discussion about the pedophile following Kate on Twitter:

On the Thursday episode of the TV show TMZ they had the story about the mom who gave her child botox. They said that the story was a hoax, it was all made up, the woman LIED and she did it for money.

Mom is saying that she was approached by a British tabloid to do a story with the aid of a script for $200 (The Sun denies it and that they did not knowingly publish a false story). TMZ said they know she got $10,000 from GMA, story caused a controversy, kid was taken away, UCLA Med Center tested the kid and there was NO botox so the kid was returned.

TMZ asked the question: Who is to blame? The woman or the media?

There is a debate among the staff. One of the gals said, "she is the parent, she should have said I will find another way to get money"

The response was "another way than to exploit your child??" At which point a photo of Joe Jackson, Kate Gosselin and Michael Lohan are flashed across the TV screen.

I tend to hold a position of power perspective based on many years of works with sexual assualt victims and PTSD clients.  I believe that although Kate has exploited her children in my opinion, the locus of responsibility falls on TLC/Discovery because they are the ones ultimately in control.  They hire the production company which films Kate Plus Eight.  Kate does what the production company wants and the production company does what TLC/Discovery wants.  It's true that it's up to Kate to say No, but if TLC stopped ordering the product then the production companty would stop manufacturing it and the show would end.  This is simple economics.  The one with the money has the control.

Some parents have resisted money in order to maintain the integrity and health of their families.  Becki and Keith Dilley, parents of the first sextuplets born in the United States, are an excellent example.  In my book  Becki shared about their reasons for not being on reality TV, and all of them were related to not being willing to risk the hazards of being under the public microscope.  The Dilleys certainly could've used the money, but no money was worth the ultimate costs of losing their privacy and undergoing the challenges of fame.

Kate is on the other end of the spectrum.  The eight have never known life without cameras invading their holidays, "family" celebrations and most private embarrassing moments, a legacy which the children will be unable to escape for the rest of their lives.  In the beginning this was fueled by a desire for money but over the years it has grown to monster proportions by Kate's insatiable quest for money and power in my opinion.  I believe that in her TLC found the perfect reality TV subject.  In my opinion Kate appears to think she has all the power and TLC has allowed her to think so in order to keep the money train rolling down the track.  I believe that soon that train will come to an end and I fear for what will happen to Kate and the children when she realizes her very dragged out fifteen minutes are over.

Our culture's love affair with fame and money is a deadly combination with our challenging economy.  Would the balloon boy incident and the phony botox scam have happened if there were not potentially great financial rewards and oodles of attention masking as adoration and respect?  I doubt it.  Our fascination with superficial lifestyles and our current struggles to make ends meet make us particularly vulnerable to doing desparate things to make ends meet and even get rich.  Many thousands of families have lost their homes because they can no longer afford them while on their television screens they see homes like Kate's being earned for having no talent other than having been pregnant twice.  The message is anyone can get rich like Kate ~ they just have to find their very own unique "talent."

What do you think?  Perhaps you hold one person to blame or perhaps you see, as I do, a chain of command with the one with the biggest purse strings at the top.  In your opinion, when a parent continues to have her children filmed after they've said they don' want to and after their father has tried to no avail to stop the filming, and when a little boy throws up on national TV because he's been forced to lie about going up in a homemade balloon, and when a parent either makes up or goes along with a story about injecting her own daughter with botox in order to make her more "perfect," who's to blame?

Snark Alert: 8 Gosselin Kids 2 B Adopted by the Chinese =:D

Mickey McKean brought this delightfully snarky article to my attention.  It seems that in order to assist the Gosselin children in escaping their "deplorable living conditions" the Chinese government is willing to make an exception to their one-child per family policy and grant the children refugee protection status so that they may be adopted by a Chinese family and whisked to the safety of working in Chinese sweat shops.  According to the article, "Officials were persuaded to approve the exemption after watching last season’s DVD of “Kate Plus 8” which airs on TLC." 

Here's the article:

The Chinese government approved an application by the Yang family of Szechwan province to adopt all eight Gosselin children citing “inhumane and harsh” living conditions resulting from living with their mother, Kate Gosselin. The Chinese government is willing to grant an exemption to their one-child per family policy and grant the children refugee protection status. Officials were persuaded to approve the exemption after watching last season’s DVD of “Kate Plus 8” which airs on TLC.

Da Yang and his wife, Mei Lang, began their campaign to adopt the Gosselin’s after they themselves watched the final season of “Jon & Kate Plus 8” which is just now airing in China. In an interview with an interpreter, Da Yang described the moment he knew he wanted to help the kids, “Those poor, poor children. That woman is crazy and she makes them go on television to for the world to see. What great shame she brings to herself and to her family. The husband [Jon Gosselin] was a very wise man to leave that house of evil. But he at least had a chance to escape. Those poor children must remain there with that misguided woman [Kate Gosselin].”

Mr. Yang was asked if he believed the children would have a better life even though the couple lived in poverty and often work 20 hours a day. “I work in a coal mine during the day and at night I mix dangerous chemicals at the paint factory. My wife works at the hammer factory and sews rugs until her fingers must stop working. We live in a small shack by a polluted river with no roof. The air is very hard to breathe. We go without food sometimes for weeks. But even we consider the [Gosselin] kids’ living conditions deplorable.” Mr. Yang continued, “The only cameras they will ever have to see again will be the ones they put together with their tiny little hands at the factory where they will work.”

The Chinese government denied the couple’s initial request to also adopt Jon Gosselin along with the eight children. But the request was denied because he didn’t demonstrate any practical value or could offer any meaningful contributions to society. There has yet to be response form the U.S. State Department in regards to whether the adoption papers will be accepted by the U.S. government.

If you love to snark here's a good opportunity. There's a comments section on the site or park your snark here if you prefer.

The thought of the eight having to slave their eighty little fingers to the bones making cheap toxic plastic products to be sold to unsuspecting rich spoiled Americans is indeed horrifying, but at least they'll finally be free of Chris Watts, online predators, having to pretend to be happy on cue, having film of themselves vomiting being sold for entertainment, and all the other hazards of being in Kate Plus Eight.