I'm more than a little over the Nit Wit Twits, a/k/a Jon and Kate Once Had Eight or whatever their fifteen minutes of fame is called by the people who produce it. I have no idea how long the show has been on the air, but can guess (too long) or what the point and purpose of this video venture is supposed to be, aside from (based on the briefest of samplings) the relentless self-aggrandizement of people who should have been galvanized at birth.
What haven't they done to one another in our full view? And we keep coming back, for more. I read not that long ago that the debut episode of whatever this season is produced the largest viewership in the history of the program AND in the history of The Discover Channel, the conduit through which this Stygian stew flows.
Assuming there are people who enjoy it, and I'll skip the 'how could you?' because far be it from me to critique your TV choices since I may be not only the only person who ever watched The Paula Poundstone Show years ago on ABC but who liked it (I'll pause while that sinks in.) but don't even their fans get tired of these people?
When the cameras cap and the crews leave, who are they and why do their lives matter? They generated a huge number of children whose lives will, in turn, be marred and/scarred by everything that their folks, with seemingly very little thought, allowed to wash over them.
I always saw as part of my job as a Dad to my children as shielding them from as much as possible of trash and crap in this world, for as long as possible. Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I fear I'm not, Jon and Kate seem to be in charge of flagging down the garbage truck and, reverse indicators beeping frantically, getting it to back the load up to the living room and dump it right through the open window. Kids, our world- warts and all; World, our kids.
And the rest of us, fascinated, cannot look away. Back in the Sixties, PBS' Great American Dream Machine gave us The Loud Family who, much like K&J, eventually disintegrated under the glare of the kicker lights on the video cameras and were scattered like so much chaff, with skin, to the four winds. And more than a generation later, it happens all over again-this time brought to us by the fine folks in our local towns who brew, bake and boil products we use in our homes everyday.
This story (I first typed NEWS and then deleted it as it's certainly not news) finishes me with these imbeciles for the rest of my life and hopefully theirs as well. Talking about putting the funk in dysfunctional--what a cautionary tale (for the rest of us). But as I wave goodbye to them, I must thank them as well because when I measure my life and problems against them and theirs, I feel really good about how my series is going. Heck, we're up for renewal and even a syndication deal!
-bill kenny
No comments:
Post a Comment