It probably doesn't help that I caught a few minutes of the show after watching the first episode of the Mildred Pierce miniseries from HBO. In it, Mildred has too much pride to ask her ex for financial support (or to stick around) and is so ashamed of being a waitress that she won't tell her kids about what she is doing for a living.
Talk about opposite ends of the spectrum.
Even if you account for the fact that Mildred's story is fictional and takes place in the early 1930's,
I was really uncomfortable with Mildred. When it comes to feeding my kids and getting them other stuff they need, I don't have a lot of pride. I would do any job, if I had to. Being a waitress might not be as impressive as being a neurosurgeon, but it's hard, honest work. Why be ashamed of hard work? Only criminals should be ashamed to tell their kids how they put food on the table, right?
And yet, I also felt uncomfortable watching Here Comes Honey Boo Boo. Obviously, these people have no shame about putting their children on national television. . .or weighing them on national television. . .or having subtitles put under their comments because their accents are so thick. And maybe if I had 4 kids to feed and one of them was 17 and pregnant I'd be happy to get paid to live my life on television too. Hell, I'd think about it twice now, and I've only got 3 kids.
But as I watched them all eat Cheese Curls for breakfast, I just cringed. And it's not like I'm the poster child for healthy eating. I mean, I have eaten Cheese Curls for breakfast. Just not in front of my children or on national television. I felt shame for eating Cheese Curls for breakfast. I feel shame when I feed my kids fast food or my house is messy or whatever. There is not a time in my life - even when I wore a size 4 (which I did for quite a while) - that I would have been so comfortable that I would have let anyone weigh me on national television.
Too much shame is toxic. Obviously. But um, does that mean we should have no shame at all? For anything? Did Honey Boo Boo's family make me uncomfortable because I was jealous of their shame free lives?
What this probably means is that I should stop watching so much television.*
*Not that I'm ashamed of that or anything.
5 comments:
it frightens me that people have so little shame. That is not to say that I think shame is a good thing; I just mean to say that, at some point, we should all have standards for ourselves. And those standards should be far higher than honey boo boo's family's standards, far higher than Lilo's standards, far higher than Snooki's standards, and far higher than Real Housewife standards.
What is wrong with western society when such a lack of shame is celebrated and used as the standard someone seeks to achieve?
How far are we, really, from The Running Man or Death Race becoming a reality instead of a movie concept? How far are we, really, from shit like in Robocop, where the world aspires to own 600SUX cars that get really shitty gas mileage, "I'll buy that for a dollar?", and so-on? How far are we from the world of Demolition Man, where all restaurants are Taco Bell and ad jingles are common radio fare rather than real music?
What is wrong with people that they think honey boo boo and snooki are ok?
#doneranting
Cindy Lou - Standards! That's it exactly. I should just attach your comment to the bottom of my blog. Also, have you read the Hunger Games trilogy? I think it goes along with the movies you mentioned.
haha cheese curls for breakfast. Oddly I was flipping the chan and Buffy The Vampire Slayer was on and Giles says to Cordeilia "Have u no shame?" and she goes "Oh please like shame is a good thing to have"
I agree. It's exploitive and creepy and i always wonder how the other kids, the ones who are not the ahem cash cows are treated/feel?
Cindy Lou who I'm liking your dvd collection. I mean isn't Fear Factor just one on set mishap away from being The Running Man?
YES! This is what I've been saying since the advent of reality teevee. It will lead us to the destruction of society as we know it.
It's not only lowering standards, it's changing them completely! It's like television is one giant freakshow and the freakiness is that the people have abhorrent behaviors.
And they have to keep getting more and more abhorrent to keep the attention of people who find Snooki and Honey Boo Boo to be tame after all the exposure.
Wow, struck a nerve.
Blackshear - Yeah, do they feel blessed or shunned? Especially when one of them could be on Teen Mom as it is.
LucidLotus - That's what the husband keeps telling me. My "guilty pleasure" is going to just plain "guilty" at this point.
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