It seems like everywhere I look lately, whatever source isn't covering the shitstorm in Iran (it's like a sandstorm, but with bullets and protesters screaming, in Farsi, "Death to the Dictator"), is babbling on and on about Jon and Kate Gosselin of that terribly-horribly-awful really bad show, "Jon & Kate plus 8" (which has evolved into "Jon & Kate plus 8+, Jon's mistress, Kate's temper, and divorce lawyers) -- j'accuse Yahoo! News.
What I don't understand about this whole thing, is why these people have subjected and exploited their children to be on the teevee, knowing full well how the lives of multitudes of child actors have turned out (only "Blossom" has had a productive life). But what really baffles me is why people care so much about Jon and Kate Gosselin.
For those who are better at avoiding entertainment news than I am, Jon had an affair, Kate got her picture on the cover of some rag spanking one of her dozens of children and that child "screaming in pain" (according to the Entertainment Tonight clip that was played on The Soup this week), and they're going to allow their messy divorce to be fodder for their stupid tv show.
First of all, this isn't interesting, *coughYahoocough*, everybody's family is fucked up. I've been through tons of dramatic family bullshit, but I don't think it should be on the teevee to entertain people whose lives are temporarily not that fucked up. Secondly, they're not providing a service, they aren't providing an example. And instead of delivering even the entertainment value of a day time talk show or soap opera, all that's really going on for the audience is plain old fashioned schadenfreude, the most amusing and ironic part of which is that they show is owned and aired by the ABC/Disney "Family" channel.
I don't know how exploiting your children and the pain of your partner for your own personal celebrity and gain equates to family values in a post-9/11 world, but I do know that despite whatever drama goes on in my family at least I have the character not to allow the falling out to go down on live television. There's a possibility that all of this is just a publicity stunt, or that those children are just actors, and Kate is really a washed up soap actress teevee who got plastic surgery after her last remaining Daytime Emmy disintegrated from exposure to sunlight; that Jon is just a reject from American Idol who managed to get a really good agent... but still. What the fuck, America?
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