(no subject)

[mamadeb]

I just stopped shaking. I'm serious.

I just watched a man shove his wife *hard* on a reality series because they were coming in *second* in a race. A race where it only matters if you come in last. It's not fun. It's ugly and awful and the host of the show - he looked as horrified as I felt. I wonder what he'd have done if he could have.

There were lovely moments tonight and there were some awful racist or ignorant comments. This overshadows all of them.

Comments

[cyprinella]

Amazing Race? That's so sad. If nothing else, I'd almost wish he'd get them disqualified for poor sportsmanship.

[jacquez.livejournal.com]

nlanza says "It's on national television. Betcha all his friends are watching. At least everyone around him now knows he's a worthless piece of shit."

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

The problem is, I don't think *she* does.

And honestly, if he can't control himself on camera, how is he *off* camera?

[jacquez.livejournal.com]

Sigh.

[tanacawyr.livejournal.com]

Three words: Caught. On. Camera. Serves the son of a bitch right. It's probably not the first time he's pushed her aroung physically, or even worse. Now, if she ever wants a divroce, it's gotten about nine thousand times easier for her.

[dphearson.livejournal.com]

Okay.

This is why you should not watch 'Reality TV' shows. They are not good for you- nor for the people who particpate.

Ugh.

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

Usually, this is the class of the reality genre - team interaction, interteam dynamics, elimination based on skill, luck and, in the end, strength of will, not on alliances and voting, and the coolness of going around the world.

And you get wonderful moments - teams who are thrilled to be doing this, or doing this together, awe and wonder at the locations and the people they meet, even genunine kindness.

And we saw that in this episode. Last episode, one team came in last but instead of being eliminated, they just lost all their money and would get none for that leg. Sweet, loving grandparents in a strong relationship, too.

They were in a desperately poor country. They needed money but couldn't face begging from the people there, so they approached their competitors. And their competitors came through for them, including the jerk. As it happens, this team was eliminated in this leg, and we'll miss them.

[ataniell93.livejournal.com]

Ugh, I hate 'reality' shows. How awful.

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

This series is usually above such things. Teams argue and get tense and tired and sometimes shout at each other, and at least one relationship ended because the race itself made them realize they were wrong for each other, but I've never seen abuse of any sort. And they didn't show the breakup as anything but sad.

[darthhellokitty.livejournal.com]

I'd love her to take that video segment to court with her. Grrrrr.

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

And my cow-orkers wonder why I sneer at most "reality" shows. I will admit to watching a few that might fall into that category: the various historical recreation shows on PBS (both British and American) -- and they're about as nasty as I care to see, and Monster House. I mean, if I want mean, vicious, and ugly, I can just tune in the news.

I'm really sorry to hear you say this, because Amazing Race had always been on the "someday maybe" list for watching.

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

It's normally much better than this. It's the class of the US ones, I think.

[suecochran.livejournal.com]

That show has had a lot of couples who are extremely dysfunctional. I wonder if they choose them for that reason? I didn't see the episode that you mentioned, but I have seen many episodes where people just treated each other horribly, very verbally abusive, but I don't recall seeing any physical abuse like that. And this is entertainment these days?

[jacquez.livejournal.com]

It can be a tense show, and I think a lot of people kind of - show the seams of their relationship on it. My husband and I are not big fans, but we've seen a bunch of episodes, and at one point he said to me "we should never, ever do that show" and I agreed - we would KILL each other. Just looking at it, we can tell that I would get very snippy with him, and he would freak out, and there would be a screaming fight like every five minutes, no kidding.

And yet our relationship isn't dysfunctional normally. I think the show just puts unusual stresses on people - a lot of these folks probably have completely functional relationships outside of these kinds of situations, and I doubt that the show is picking people specifically for dysfunctionality - though they may deliberately throw in a relationship or two that they suspect is that way, for entertainment value.

Which does not excuse Physical Abuse Dude, because no matter how stressed you are, that is Not Freaking OK Ever, Dicksmack.

(Now, TAR I could do with my sister M, I'm sure. M. and I would merrily snark at each other the whole time and do all the physical challenges and basically yuk it up gleefully. But M. reacts differently to things than my husband does, and that would make the difference. I think a lot of the people on TAR don't think about the emotional suitability of their chosen partner for the demands of the show.