America is obsessed with a husband and wife who are driving their family off a cliff. Jon and Kate Gosselin were just a nice couple with a lot of kids. Then television got a hold of them. Funny thing what fame can do. It put Susan Boyle in an institution after just a few of her fifteen minutes had ticked by on Britain's Got Talent. And it's tearing the once-happy Gosselins apart, even as the disintegration of their marriage proves the largest rating bonanza for the TLC network in its history.
But at what cost?
TLC is a moral network. I know because they spent millions of dollars sending me around the country healing families in crisis on Shalom in the Home and we are about to launch a new program devoted to helping married couples whose sex lives have disappeared. And yes, their agenda is to make a TV show. But there were many occasions when after a few days of filming the network told me they had the show they needed but I insisted on staying a few days longer to help a particular family through its issues and no one objected even though it cost the network thousands more dollars. On other occasions during counseling alarming facts about particular families came to light during the filming. But we kept it off the air, even though the shock-value would have been great for ratings.
So why this time, when it comes to Jon and Kate, is the network sitting back and letting a family implode, especially when no one doubts that fame and fortune have played an important role in the family's demise? That question has been put to me by hundreds of our viewers who write to me, baffled that TLC has done nothing to save the marriage, if indeed it can still be salvaged at all. I cannot answer that question and I believe that TLC has a responsibility to try and help this family.
Some want the show taken off the air. They feel that reality TV in general is the real enemy, exploiting innocent people's problems to draw viewers. While I don't want to comment on Jon and Kate in particular, there can be no question that a great deal of reality TV is inane, embarrassing, and exploitative. So why, aside from the obvious ego considerations (there are no serious financial considerations as these shows make very little money), do I serve as a reality TV host?
Two reasons. First, let's get real. There is a greater chance of Jimmy Hoffa being found on the surface of the moon than networks dropping the 'unscripted' format. So we may as well utilize the genre to inspire families to fix rather than ignore their problems. Reality TV can help.
Second, and more important, what reality TV, Facebook, and Twitter all point to is a desire on the part of the average citizen to be the center of attention. Perhaps it's the fact that our parents missed too many of our Little League games or that our mature relationships are often so loveless and broken. Whatever the reason, there is a dearth of love in our lives and so we compensate with the poor man's version of affection, namely, attention. We all want to be celebrities. And our lust for fame has made us into a generation of narcissists who update our Twitter status with what we ate for breakfast and how are hemorrhoids are faring. But in the course of sharing the details of our days with others, believe or not we have stumbled on a solution for one of the biggest problems of human existence: growing bored with our own lives.
Time was when everyday life was seen as so monotonous that you had to retreat into Star Trek science fiction in order to keep things interesting. Teens especially spent huge chunks of their time immersed in fantasy video games. But along came reality TV and demonstrated that things as simple as speaking to your spouse and being raised by your parents could actually be interesting.
One of the things that most undermines a marriage is when a husband and wife fail to highlight the small things. A man comes home from work, his wife asks him how his day went and he offers a monosyllabic retort, "Same." Conversation over. In truth his wife is fascinated by the small things of her husband's day. He's the one who thinks it's boring. Indeed it can be said that in life there are no small things. The good life accrues to those who see the ordinary as extraordinary, the natural as miraculous, and the everyday as unique. Couple are held together not by the giant canvass of momentous experience but by the small fibers of everyday occurrence.
This is also an important lesson for our teenagers who too often make the mistake of idolizing famous rock stars because of the perceived glamour of the celebrity's red-carpeted life. While the Jonas brothers are singing in front of fifty thousand crazed girls, Sheila is making her bed and taking out the garbage. But if, by some mechanism, sharing the experience of doing something as ordinary as homework could be seen as glamorous and something others wish to read, perhaps, the teenager might be reengaged in their own lives instead of living vicariously through a damaged star.
Reality TV might just bring us back to reality. Facebook and Twitter might just lead us to appreciate the small stuff, so long as we don't go off the deep end and make them into super time-wasting indulgences of unfettered narcissism that preclude us from ever meeting real people.
It helps that Twitter let's you post only 140 characters at a time, a near impossibility for a Rabbi and a clear indication of anti-Semitic intent on the part of its creators.
So let me practice my brevity by summarizing my points in Twitter format:
1. Reality is always more interesting than fantasy.
2. Little things are really big things. Nothing in life is inconsequential.
3. Fans are good. Followers are better. Friend me on Facebook. Follow me on Twitter.
There, all done. Now back to writing my twenty-page Sabbath sermon. I know you can't wait.
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I was just with a friend last night speaking of how we knew a rabbi in England who was absolutely the best person to learn one on one with who would ask the best questions, bringing true joy especially to those who had never studied judaism before.
...and then this same rabbi decided to become a global media star seeking the adorations of millions instead of those lone students and has suffered the ups and downs of chasing that dream ever since.
Where is the personal responsibility here? You write as if Jon and Kate had no choice in the matter, as if they were kidnapped and forced to do this stupid TV show. Yes....the kids should be the main concern and I feel almost bad for writing this but.....if you are willing to openly exploit your entire family by putting them under almost round the clock surveillance for the sake of profit, then maybe your family unit was never that strong to begin with and you should separate.
It's like people who blame McDonalds for their being fat. Take some responsibility!
The media looks at members of the public as fodder to be consumed by them and their viewers, no matter what fate may befall those put (sometimes) involuntarily in the spotlight. For all the faux concern expressed for average folks by local news anchors, their actual focus is on glorifying themselves via presenting human foibles and tragedy on a daily basis and getting a bigger paycheck in the bargain when negotiation time rolls around.
On the other hand, there are enough people so desperate to have attention brought to themselves (and the money they are given for it) that it only further validates the way the media's hungry maw does business. That is, the media is only too happy to be carney barkers for folks who wish to become cartoons in the name of their own narcissism.
Nah. It wasn't Star Trek. Historically, it was alcohol.
While your point about these reality shows being supplied by a seeming increase in narcissism in society, I would argue that man has always been narcissistic, we just have more toys and social permission to give the game away. We all want attention of one sort or another. I personally wouldn't mind the accoutrements of celebrity (hot and cold running chicks, dump truck loads of cash), but I couldn't deal with the violations of privacy inherent in being a public figure. I think most of us are balanced enough to realize the consequences of that lifestyle.
Nonetheless, there does seem to be an ethos among some of the public of, "I'm on tv, therefore I am." Look at the idiots at televised ballgames who whip out the cellphone when they know they are on camera so that they can tell their friends. I mean, really, who cares? Being anonymous has definite benefits and some folks need to know that. The cellphone at the ballgame move is such a pathetic portrayal of just how insignificant you feel one doesn't know if one should despise people that needy or feel pity for them.
This family is now in crisis and needs a hero. This family is not the problem, they just held up a mirror for all of us to examine what is exactly wrong in our own lives and world.
What about that Rabbi?
And Rabbi, have you discussed your concerns with TLC? If not, WHY NOT?
There are children at stake here.
Take some of TLC's big money they throw your way and go help this family. You, unlike the rest of us out here, stand in a unique position to do something positive for them. That would be the moral thing.