The TV domestic-life exhibitionists Jon and Kate Gosselin are divorcing. What's more:
Also surprising almost nobody, Jon and Kate Gosselin indicated that TLC reality show would continue to be taped. The fifth season premiere of the show last month drew nearly 10 million viewers to TLC, shattering records for the channel."We've always done the show for the kids to be able to provide for them, to collect the memories for ourselves," Ms. Gosselin said.
I'm sorry, but these two are fools, and a particular kind of fool. They have eight children, and have welcomed TV cameras into their family's life for the past two years. I can only imagine the stress that would place on the family. We have only three kids, and our family life is stressful enough with just the day to day activities of living. Add five kids to that, and an omnipresent camera crew. How could any family keep it together under those conditions?
One never knows exactly what goes on inside a marriage, but it looks to me like the Gosselins killed their own marriage and destroyed their own family's unity and integrity by making a media spectacle of their lives. Now, having done that, they're going to keep the cameras rolling! It's a form of child abuse, and both of those vanity-besotted adults will have earned whatever contempt their poor children will have for them years from now.
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Observer,
I never said that Jon and Kate were monogamous -- I have no idea if they were.
Geoff G. said they gay men are -- or at least more so than straight people are, which even you'll agree is a laugh.
And there's not one thing I've said here that isn't supported by research.
For one-stop evidentiary shopping -- since you're too lazy to do your own homework yourself -- check out *The Male Couple* by David McWhirter and available on Amazon.
There you'll find that while 85% of married women and 75% of married men have been faithful to their partners, only 5% of gay men in committed relationships have been so to their own.
Which, again, would lead any *rational* observer -- instead of an irrational *fantasist* -- to conclude that gay men are something rather other than the paragons of fidelity and family values that Geoff G. would have us believe that they are.
Not wishing to enter the mindless tripe characterizing the bulk of the comments for this entry, I venture to tread upon more relevant ground. I do this without having seen one episode of "Jon & Kate Plus 8"; my exposure to the show includes reading a couple articles from "news" sources and this blog entry. However, I have been intrigued by this story and I think there is an important aspect of it that has gone relatively unexplored.
When I read about this story, I was to some extent shocked by the lack of shame this couple seems to have (although "shocked" is a term which, when used in relation to American pop culture, no doubt violates the Queen Gertrude Rule: "Hamlet", Act 3, scene 2, 218). At the tender age of 26, I'm a relatively young person. But I could have sworn that, at some point in my life, I have heard older people talk about "failed marriages" in some bygone era. And it is my recollection that, in these stories, the failing people usually exhibited some indicia of shame. I certainly never heard of people broadcasting the details or even the fact of their divorce for all to see and hear, especially not for profit. Yet this couple treats their divorce as a business opportunity.
Mr. Dreher writes, "One never knows exactly what goes on inside a marriage, but it looks to me like the Gosselins killed their own marriage and destroyed their own family's unity and integrity by making a media spectacle of their lives. Now, having done that, they're going to keep the cameras rolling!" The act of "keeping the cameras rolling" is indeed shameless, but the Gosselins have in fact been more shameless than that. They sought to increase viewership for their show by running a suspense-filled advertisement which informs us that they have made "some life-changing decisions that will affect every member of our family." [play suspenseful music of choice here]
What's more, the advertisement worked. Apparently, more people watched the Gosselins announce their divorce than watched any previous episode. This isn't particularly surprising given the success of "Reality TV" shows; that the American public's appetite for voyeurism is insatiable is beyond cavil. Still, it makes me sad. These people brazenly used the failure of their marriage as a business commodity and we, like mindless drones high on soma, went home after work on Monday and tuned in by the millions. "Orgy-porgy! Orgy-porgy!"
The public's unmitigated willingness to give the Gosselins the attention they sought therefore suggests not only the shamelessness of the Gosselins but also that of the public-at-large. Divorce is an evil thing, and people who callously make an exhibition of divorce for profit, along with those who fill the theater seats, should be shunned. Thus, I say to the Gosselins and their viewers, "O shame! where is thy blush?"
Yes, freelunch is right that the freebasing claim was most likely a media myth (just as Mama Cass didn't really choke on a ham sandwich), although definitive proof that it was a cabin heater malfunction could not be found. The plane crashed rather than blew up after catching on fire and the pilots (though not the other passengers) survived, and they believed it was the heater.
David Nelson is still alive and as far as I know, well.
On topic: Why did anyone watch this show (Jon and Kate, not Ozzie and Harriet) to begin with? That isn't just meant as snark - what was the appeal?
In an era of declining fertility in the modern world shows like this provide a window into something alien. An effort to understand the "other" is important in many forms of literature. By reflecting on how man reacts to family dynamics different than our own we can consider ourselves and our own personal choices.
Or put less pretentiously, and more honestly, it's the "freak show" thing.
Not a viewer of “Jon and Kate” myself, but close friends were. What they’ve said about the show (up until now) echoes some of what Thomas R said. They were fascinated by the chance to watch something that was once common but is now sadly rare.
But here’s what they said it was: two people who clearly did not get along struggling to hold a marriage together for the sake of young children and a family business (yes, I know the family business was a TV show not a corner shoe store).
Sadly, the marriage has now ended and I suspect my friend will lose interest. There’s nothing unusual about seeing kids damaged by divorce—we can see plenty of that among our friend and neighbors every day.
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