Reality TV not a recipe for success
By By Leada Gore, Editor
In case you missed it, Jon and Kate have decided to separate. And, in case you’re wondering who Jon and Kate are, then you must have missed the latest episode of “Jon and Kate Plus 8,” a reality show involving a family with a set of twins and another set of sextuplets.
It’s been big tabloid news lately that the mom and dad, Jon and Kate, have been having marital problems. The culmination of last night’s show was the announcement that the couple was ending their 10-year marriage.
During interviews with both, they blamed a myriad of causes, going back to different versions of the famous “we just grew apart” several times. Not one time did they mention the fact they chose to open up their lives to millions via a reality show as a stress factor.
Go figure.
Greg and I watched the show, both amazed at the seeming selfishness of both parties. It’s not as if reality show couples have a long track record of success and it’s not as if this family didn’t have enough on its hands to start with.
It wasn’t the number of children that bothered Greg, though. It was the reality show itself.
I looked around. I was folding laundry on the sofa, trying to find one missing brown sock. The washer, dryer and dishwasher were all whirring away. There was a pile of blocks strewn out across the floor, waiting to be picked up and put away. The dog was curled up on his chair, laying beside a plastic doll Sutton had decorated with a pen the day before.
And maybe that’s the point for Jon and Kate, too. When you play out your entire life on TV, you can’t have socks laying on the sofa. There’s no laundry strewn about and you have to make sure all the blocks are off the floor.
There are no pen-tattooed dolls to be found in reality TV.
Andy Warhol once said, in the future, everyone will be famous for 15 minutes. It seems now is the future of which he spoke, with people like Jon and Kate claiming their quarter hour. But for me, I’d just as soon skip my 15 minutes.
If you need me, I will be folding socks.
