Real TV

This is not the first time that TV has ticked me off. Surely won’t be the last.

On Saturday afternoon, Ferris was recouping on the couch.
He was flipping around the channels, bouncing around to a couple ball games, some action/thriller type movie and MTV every once in awhile – typical TV watching with Ferris (which is why I rarely watch TV with him).

On one of my trips through the room I noticed this show he was watching about kids of celebrities. I sat down for a moment to watch.
The show seemed to be about just how fantastic their lives were. So posh and full of everything a kid could want. One segment was on the Travolta kids. They told an anecdote of the first time their daughter took a commercial flight – she wanted to know why there were all those people on the plane. Because of course, she is used to just the family being on Dad’s luxury jet. They showed pics of his jet too. Now I don’t know much about private jets – but this was a pretty amazing plane.
They also interviewed some rappers kid who is on his local football team, and the dad spends gobs of money on the team and chauffeuring them around in limo’s and such to their games.

I have a real problem with this type of programming aimed at kids and adolescents.

Its one thing if an ADULT wants to watch Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. Some I suppose watch to torture themselves, others may watch just out of morbid curiosity. Some simply find it interesting or amusing.
Either way – we are ADULTS. Whether we have a grasp on reality or not, we process this sort of information differently. I can watch Animal Planet all day and not run out to the local shelter and bring all the pets home (ok, well there have been some close calls there). Kids don’t have such emotional restraint. Kids don’t have a grasp on their own socio-economic status. Kids don’t have the maturity to deal with the pressures of economic standing. And really …why should they – they’re kids.

I know, I know, before you start commenting on how parents should be limiting what their children watch… I completely agree. My point is – who thinks this stuff up, who approves it, who creates it – that’s a whole huge team of really stupid people. If one of you out there reading this blog created this show, you will hear no apologies from me. I suggest you find other work, might I suggest the Peace Corps, or perhaps simply a little community service.
I think this kind of television is more damaging than R rated movies.
Now Disney has been making movies about rich kids for ages. They are feel good movies where the kids get to figure out that it’s not the money that’s important, and then they adopt the butler or some such nonsense. It’s cute, it’s not real, it’s a STORY – usually with some semblance of a moral.
This show is reality. The cold hard facts that some are rich and most are not. And those who ARE rich have great stuff, and great lives and get to have TV shows made about them.
I hate TV.