I don’t know about you, but pretty much everyone I know last week watched the TV footage of Balloon Boy sailing across the country in his dad’s silver contraption.
Adam was at work, and I was theoretically working, too. But for a good part of that horrible couple of hours, we were watching footage of the balloon together and instant-messaging each other. How could this happen? Where were the parents?
The worst part was when the balloon finally landed and rescuers circled it slowly, stabbing at the balloon to let the helium out.
“Why aren’t they looking for the boy?” I typed. “I’d be ripping that thing apart with my bare hands.”
At first it looked like they were going to find nothing more than a body inside. And then they found nothing. Then came word that a cardboard compartment that had been on the bottom was missing. Where was the boy who’d been inside? Along with everyone else, I felt sick.
Alice isn’t much younger than that boy, and to lose her in such an awful way... there just aren’t words to express the hole that would leave in a person’s life.
Now, of course, it looks as though the family staged it all to get themselves a reality show. After their six-year-old barfed twice in a TV interview—what, producers, once wasn’t enough for you to shut off the cameras and microphones?—police had some sharp questions for the mom and dad.
I don’t want to get too judgmental about the family, here. I read this morning that they’d been homeless, and I can see how those circumstances can make a person do desperate, stupid things. They probably did want a reality show, and they put their children in a terrible position to increase their odds.
It’s a cultural problem. These reality shows aren’t “reality” at all. They’re like circus freak shows of previous centuries, piped into our homes 24 hours a day. The same networks that produce these modern freak shows—“Half Ton Teen,” anyone?—keep the cameras rolling when families are melting down or behaving like harpies instead of “real” housewives. They turn tragedy into entertainment and make tons of money in the process. We’re responsible, too. We are the audience that advertisers want to reach.
The sympathetic lighting and inspirational music shouldn’t fool us. These shows profit from people’s misery. It’s gross. We should turn it off. Turning away from these bus wrecks is not going to make people like the Heenes better parents, but at least it will protect their children from being sold out to the highest bidder.
Meanwhile, I’m going to turn my own attention, if quietly, to the families I know and admire. Their lives may not be dramatic enough to be featured on TV, but they’re inspiration and comfort for me nonetheless. They’re the actual reality show, and it’s infinitely more meaningful than the fake stuff. These are the families I see shopping for groceries together, the ones having fun choosing cereal and ice cream. These are the parents I see pushing the swings at the park. The ones who each week conquer mountains of laundry, only to do the same thing all over again the next week without complaining about the hopelessness of it all.
They’re the parents who drive their kids to all the unglamorous appointments: the speech therapist, the orthodontist, the library for that book report. They wipe noses, and cheer their kids through challenges.
It’s this sort of stuff, the patient nurturing, that helps little boys and girls grow up into men and women who want to make something better than a profit. They want to make a better world. Here’s to all of them, and to your own reality.
You took the words right out of my mouth. With the exception that, after having seen exactly 5 minutes of Big Brother, way back when they started it, I vouched to NEVER EVER watch ANY reality show in my life.
It is a sick, distorted sensationalism, an unhealthy form of Schadenfreude and I want nothing to do with it.
I have managed to steer clear of Octomoms, Jon & Kates, celebrity private lives and the whole shebang. I wish I did not even know these people's names, but I would have to totally stop reading newspapers or watch TV in order to accomplish that.
Posted by: InGinouity | October 22, 2009 at 06:25 PM
I agree. I am a grandparent who has her daughter and grandkids living at home for the time being. My husband and I watch them while she works so we have enough drama in our family as it is.
Our society has changed so much over the years, nothing is sacred anymore. They will put absolutely anything on TV.
The kids are young so we make sure they do not accidentally see something they should not be viewing.
That also includes the news which is way to graphic now days.
Posted by: Ginger | October 23, 2009 at 10:25 AM
Amen to your whole entry on this topic and that also goes for you other entries as well. Please don't even get me started on this.
Posted by: Jessica A | October 23, 2009 at 12:03 PM
thank you for this post. We don't even have tv anymore...haven't for about a year now & the kids don't miss it a bit. It's easy to keep most of the media junk out of their minds. I would've never even heard about that balloon boy if I didn't read my yahoo news every morning.
Posted by: M | October 25, 2009 at 09:13 PM
You said it!
Posted by: Angela | October 26, 2009 at 11:46 AM
Thank you for saying that. I'm so tired of the "reality" t.v. shows that aren't even real, even things like Nanny 911. I have to wonder who would want to make the worst parts of their lives public? It is so sad that we would watch this stuff and think its great entertainment.
Posted by: Kellee L | October 26, 2009 at 05:20 PM
I absolutley will NOT watch reality shows they are so STUPID!!! I really hate them. When I saw that balloon I knew in my heart no one could be in there it was full of helium (I think that's how it is spelled) hello you can't breathe in that stuff and live.
Posted by: Kia | November 08, 2009 at 05:13 AM