If you have recently turned on your television, you may have noticed some channels are different than others. While some offer riveting, thoughtful commentary on current events (Fox News), and others quality, abuse-themed drama (Lifetime), a few are labeled educational. Ostensibly, this means they are intended to supply some type of information that is, theoretically, more useful than the top stories on Headline News. Back in the day, such channels as The Learning Channel (TLC, to the acronym-savvy), Discover, and the History Channel were about, oddly enough, learning, discovering, and history, respectively. They are still not to be confused with, say, ESPN or the Playboy Channel (both arguably more illuminating than PBS), but these channels have turned to covering things that, while technically information, can hardly be construed as education.
However, I am learning things about America, things that I suspected, yet did not necessarily want to know.
Toddlers & Tiaras is a perfect case in point. For those not in the know, this is a show about the World's Creepiest Phenomenon: child beauty pageants. Little girls from age diapered to five are encouraged to flaunt their bodies for the benefit of onlookers. Let me just say this: weird as the family/friends of the contestants may be, the random strangers who show up for the pageant are, without a doubt, the sleaziest sickos to walk the earth, just a hop, skip, and jump above playground-oglers. I feel like, if anything, this show should be a new version of “To Catch a Predator,” in which a a false kiddy pageant is announced, then anyone who shows up is cornered, interrogated, and tased for the good of society. How does this sort of thing go on? Aren't there entire organizations of self-righteous busybodies protesting grownup beauty pageants of willing girls? How is this not a form of sexual exploitation? It's basically softcore child pornography. These adorable tots are being fitted with false teeth, lubed up, and tossed in a microwave to achieve a Barbie level of artificiality that makes the women on Jersey Shore look like au natural beauties. On a toddler, this has the unsettling additional effect of turning them into animate dolls. I have seen Chucky – I know what happens when dolls come to life, and it's nothing like Toy Story. You have to decapitate the fuckers, Highlander-style. And, all questions of latent pedophilia aside, has anyone considered what this shit does psychologically to the child? Not only are they being told to “grow up” at an absurdly premature stage, most of these girls are turned into vile, bitchy, Pixie Stix-snorting prima donnas who will end up in a ditch, a pregnant runaway shelter, a brothel, rehab, or a permanent drug-induced stupor by age thirteen. All so their sad, obese parents can live vicariously through them. Guess who's not getting a “World's Best Mom” coffee mug this Mother's Day?
Then there's A&E, which, I will grant, does not claim to be educational, but it's not precisely what I would call artistic or entertaining (except, perhaps, in the morbid sense that a car-wreck is entertaining). Take Heavy, for example. This is one of dozens of obesity-based shows on the air, except this one makes no pretense that the fatties in question are even trying to lose weight. Instead, it centers on overweight couples who bemoan the cruelty of their unalterable fate. Or something like that. Because we all know that tipping the scales at 700 pounds is the sole result of an uncontrollable genetic glandular disorder. One of the couples was having difficulty conceiving a child. First of all, yuck. Second, how is this a mystery to them? Physics alone dictate this should be damn near impossible, even assuming they can locate and identify the correct crevice for penetration. And it goes without saying that fat, lazy men produce fat, lazy sperm. They give up less than a quarter of the way up the birth canal, content to wait for the miracle of artificial insemination to do the work for them. Either that, or the pudgy little swimmers die of exertion well before sighting the fabled promised land. Seriously, hearing these people talk about intercourse is about as comfortable as dissecting your parents' sex life in depth.
So, in summary, the one thing I have truly learned from watching TV is this: I am and will always be a lot better than the average American. Ultimately, I think that is such programming's purpose. And if, Oprah forbid, I should ever sink to such levels, I can always pitch a TV show and cash in on my freakish character flaws.
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