Modern Day Freak Show

The Discovery family of television networks is to 2010 what P.T. Barnum was to 1871.  I'm hypnotized right now by TLC's logo burning into the corner of my television, topped with an advertisement for "My Giant Head" (tonight at 9!).  I can't pinpoint exactly when TLC went from educational to exploitive, but consider that "My Giant Head" will be preceded by "Human Spiders" and followed by "Super Face Surgeries."

These days, it isn't really publicly acceptable to display freaks like it was on the old traveling carnival show circuit, but apparently nobody told the folks at the Discovery Health Channel. I present to you the following shows, all playing on Discovery Health this week alone - "I Was Dead," "The Boy Who Bit Himself," "Two Sisters, One Heart," "650 Pound Virgin" (wonder why?), "The Baby Who Wouldn't Stop Crying," "200 lb. Tumor" (to be followed by the less impressive "160 lb. Tumor"), "The Breasts That Changed Color," and, of course, "I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant."

This parade of freaks started innocently enough, I'm sure, but began to snowball once midgets were added to the mix. (Yeah, I know. The term 'midget' is now frowned upon, but I'm 6'5"- what's a midget gonna do to me?)  "Little People, Big World," "Little Parents, First Baby," "The Little Couple." Okay, fine. But do we really need a program about "Little Chocolatiers"?  Apparently, the network assumes that its audience believes there's no possible way that midgets could ever contribute to society.  So in its exploitive-thinly-veiled-as-educational manner, TLC features said midgets (or little people or dwarves or whatever) driving, operating heavy equipment, and providing medical treatment - all to validate that they're as normal as you and me.  My wife summed it up perfectly the first time she saw the preview for "Little Chocolatiers" -- "Okay, we get it.  Midgets can do things!"

My real guilty pleasures, though, are the shows about obesity.  Bizarre excess has been an obsession of mine ever since I opened up my parents' 1983 Guiness Book of World Records and saw a picture of the McGuire twins riding their motorcycles. I think I liked (and still do) the comfort of knowing that there were fatter disasters in the human race than me.  Disasters like Manuel Uribe, a.k.a. the "World's Biggest Amigo," whose bedroom wall had to be yanked out so that he could be hauled to his wedding on a flatbed truck.  And Billy Robbins, the virtually immobile half-ton teen who phoned his mother to remind her to swing by GameStop to pick up some Xbox games --while she was out trying to find drinking water after Hurricane Ike. I just don't understand how being unable to get out of bed is not rock bottom for people like Manuel and Billy. When you notice that getting out of bed is becoming increasingly difficult, it seems that you would (and should) recognize that it may be a good idea to cut back on the Little Debbies.  There's no way that becoming bedridden can "sneak up" on someone who outweighs most livestock. But then again, perhaps I'm oversimplifying since these shows always manage to find the husky folks whose entire existence revolves quite literally around what has to be the unluckiest sets of mattresses and box springs on the planet.

Whatever you do, don't be naive enough to think that the brass at Discovery Communications are somehow being socially responsible for airing such embarassingly addictive television. And don't think for a minute that they have anyone's best interest at heart other than their own. Face it -- there can be no real, substantive reason that we should watch a midget operate a backhoe.  And what is the true contribution to society to broadcast a 1320-lb. man's wedding?  These networks can slap compassion and education labels on these kinds of programs all day long, but they're nothing more than exploitation in the name of revenue and ratings.  And yet... we keep coming back for more because we all feel just a little bit better about ourselves when we can shamelessly gawk at those in situations and places "worse" than our own, taking empty comfort in the fact that we're not that bad.