Blatherskite

I am going to get rid of my television. I’ve had it. The last straw was when I watched the show, “Married by America.” I was strangely addicted to this show. I couldn’t stop watching. I mean, I was rather bothered by the whole idea, maybe even slightly horrified by the idea of it. But I still watched.

I almost didn’t watch it. When I saw the previews for it I was kind of curious about it but my husband was admant about not letting us get sucked into this show. We had been addicted to Joe Millionare fairly recently before, and Temptation Island, too. He had enough. But he gave in when there was nothing else on. Our curiousity took over and we were hooked.

The last episode really bothered me. I can’t remember the names of the people on the show, but I remember the blond chick and how she was totally humiliated on national television. She and her “fiance” were at the alter and she said that she does, in fact, want to marry this man (who was a stranger to her weeks before). The guy, after hearing her spill her feelings out, said that he didn’t want to marry her. The look on her face was utter despair. She ran away and began to wail, dissappearing into the house. Then her friends and family, seeing how upset she was, began to get really upset, too. The man that walked her down the aisle (it wasn’t her father) began screaming at her “fiance” and threw a beer bottle at him. This other woman, I think it was her sister, was sitting in her folded chair, just totally in shock. Then she started to cry, her children standing next to her wondering what the f— was going on. Then they broke to commercial, and we watched, oh I don’t know, a pepsi comercial and probably a car commercial, etc. Then they came back to this train wreck. The sister went running, crying, into the house to look for the blond chick, the camera following closely behind. The camera found the blond chick sitting in fetal position in a closet, crying.

I couldn’t really sleep that night, and I thought about this show all the next day. I was bothered by what I saw. Usually, when we watch television, or movies, or play video games, or read books, etc. there is an understanding that this is not reality. We can separate the reality from the thing itself. And this seems to make it okay to watch something horrifying in, for example, a movie. But this show was different. I was watching this poor girl’s devestation on national television. I was participating in her humiliation by watching. I felt horrible for her, and I felt horrible for watching, for taking part in this “social experiment” as the producers of the show called it.

This is the last straw for me. I think I am done with television. I’m definately done with reality t.v.