By Donald M. Taylor
Everybody watches them, everybody quotes them. It’s all in fun they say, nobody takes them seriously. I say they need to be taken seriously, they are not benignly banal, they are extremely dangerous. I know, I know, Oprah has changed the format of her show. No more weirdoes, only eating right, staying fit, and reading. But she started it all and it is her legacy that has led to Jerry Springer. And, in case I am not clear about how I really feel: every one of these shows is a societal menace.
Defenders of these shows will not even admit that their sole function is entertainment. Instead they point to how therapeutic it is for the participants, how guest experts offer so much insight, and how the host of the show is able to draw a moral message from the hideous onstage tripe.
Before pointing to the seriously destructive impact of these shows, let’s quickly dismiss our defenders’ claims. First, who in their right mind, who believes they have a serious social or psychological problem would chose to deal with the problem on nation-wide television? Only those in serious denial of any problem, or someone who has a much bigger problem than they might imagine, need step forward. And what serious therapist would imagine a thirty-second analysis on television after a ten-minute interview in the green room will set all of society straight. And the perpetrators of all this human garbage feel anointed with the responsibility to fill the moral vacuum with their wisdom.
If all of this were sheer entertainment then I would dispassionately say, viewers are free to choose what they watch. But these shows are destructive and so deserve further analysis. Let’s begin with a cross-section of our viewers. To begin with, there are a large number of them, otherwise we would not have witnessed such an escalation of shows each trying to outdo the other in terms of outrageous topics. No doubt our viewers represent, to some extent, a cross-section of North American society. That is to say we would likely find the usual range of individual differences covering the gamut from the good, the bad, and the ugly. Few of our viewers are likely to purposely watch a person on display who evidences the exact same shortcoming that the viewer realizes in him- or her-self. Indeed, viewers would not only find such a program non-entertaining, they would likely find it threatening. After all, who wants to have their own shortcomings reflected back to them. But what if the people depicted on the television screen are so abnormal that not one member of the audience can see themselves reflected in the character. Now, our weirdo is “funny” or “absurd.” So far no damage has been done. But now the hidden social comparisons take hold. Our viewer actually feels better about him or her-self by watching the spectacle on TV. The viewer is as much as having an internal dialogue to the effect that “hey, I’m not so bad compared to that idiot on TV.”
At this point the psychological damage is done. Our viewer’s self-image is protected by comparing him or her-self to a worse-off other. Simply put, our louse feels better about him or her-self without any change in character. But wait, it gets worse. Before too long all of our viewers have been sensitized to a new definition of normality. True viewers recognize guests on these shows are not “normal” but they come to use these people as the standard against which to judge normality. For example, prior to exposure to such shows a viewer might consider that physical violence in any shape or form is an inappropriate means of resolving conflict. After a few shows our same viewer now interprets their own occasional loss of control as no problem compared to our guests on Jerry Springer. Moreover, our viewer now considers occasional physical violence as “OK” and only might become concerned if it escalated to the level of physical violence typical of your basic afternoon television show.
At the heart of the problem is how society defines normality. The key is that normality, and its counterpoint abnormality, are socially defined. We all feel down or anxious at times, but at what point are we clinically depressed or anxious? Sometimes we feel others are out to get us, but when we cross some imaginary line we will be labeled paranoid. What is the fine line between creativity and schizophrenia? When does assertive become aggressive? The dividing line between normal, and therefore acceptable, and abnormal, is not etched in stone. The boundary arises out of a social consensus. As such the boundary may shift as society’s perceptions and beliefs change.
The boundary surrounding “normal” that distinguishes it from “abnormal” is a critical one. Normal describes what is good and right and what people should aim for. Abnormal is associated with what is wrong, and undesirable, and those who become so labeled are treated as deviants by society.
Where the boundary gets drawn is crucial. Drawn too tightly it unfairly rejects people. Drawn too loosely it sanctions almost any form of behaviour. TV shows that aim to shock compete with each other to find the most outlandish people possible. The indirect effect is to loosen the boundary of normality. The net effect is to allow destructive, irresponsible, and immoral behaviour to fall conveniently within the newly defined boundary of normality. The behaviour portrayed in the TV shows will still be judged abnormal, but virtually anything less outrageous will now be considered OK.
I don’t want the boundary of normality loosened to that extent. It serves to legitimize our abusing each other.