Hanna Rosin: Kate Gosselin does not deserve our sympathy (via Instapundit).
posted by Helen at 5:14 AM
Saturday, October 10, 2009
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17 Comments:
An accurate statement.
The less I see and hear about Kate and her drama the better.
No, what deserves our sympathy is TLC's longsuffering audience, which on innumerable occasions has tuned in hoping for a rerun of What Not To Wear, and has instead been subjected to a Jon and Kate Plus 8 marathon!
Priorities, people. Priorities!
I'd feel much better if the show became, "The State takes 8".
hard to believe anyone cares about any of this crap.
You have to wonder about people who raise their children on television. Very few child stars go on to later fame and fortune. In fact, most of them end up with serious problems, depressed and destitute.
Practically all of the kids who played in the Brady Bunch are emotional wrecks today, and none of them are successful actors now.
Children deserve a life, a childhood in a stable home, so that they can grow into properous adults. Anything less is abuse or exploitation.
But that's about par for the course for this generation of faux adults, who brought children into this world only for what they could get out of them.
It's getting to the point (many would say it arrived long ago) that television--whether reality show, sitcom or news broadcast--is broadcasting people we used to see only in tabloids. The institution of marriage is utterly frightening, men and women are circus freaks and zoo exhibits, and the children are doomed to a life of dysfunctionality that would raise the self-esteem of a werewolf.
And people wonder why most marriages fail: They're Supposed To!
I see Jon and Kate Plus 8 as a dystopian science fiction story: postmodern technology turns regular people into a freakshow family. Further, the 24-7 media uses them as an objectified entertainment device.
It's like Steinbeck's "The Pearl" updated for the 21st century.
Kevin M: it's no wonder that young people are princesses and boors, young people fear marriage, women have issues with their looks and guys think they have to be "apha-males" and drink crapass beer. All these examples are set for them in TV and magazines, and marketed to them from childhood.
Even when obviously damaged people like those people on the Hills are shown, it normalizes that behavior for the people at large.
These were "regular people"? Please.
they do seem to behave rather normally for people with a camera on them all the time.
see how you would respond to having the media chronicle your every move.
second guessing?
the media does tell us what soap to wash our clothes with, and now how to screw around and rationalise it.
i`m suprised that the law society of california and ashley madison do`t run ads during the show.......
I would never allow the media to chronicle my every move. You have to be pretty narcissistic to get something from having cameras record you 24/7. I watched one of the first episodes of this trainwreck and I knew the network had hit paydirt with these 2. Of course, this went above and beyond my wildest expectations.
You know it isn't going to end well.
it is interesting that masses of people watch this s**t. it suggests that the disfunction displayed by these people is being downloaded into the cultural consciousness..
life imitates art.
I am with cham and fred.
The only reality show I have ever seen involved golf. Not counting documentaries and that sort of thing. But then I am weird that way.
Trey
This comment has been removed by the author.
The show's merits, or rather lack thereof, aside, I have to disagree with the article. Whatever may have transpired since the divorce filing, I see no room for sympathizing with the aldulterer. Nothing she did could have the effect of holding a gun to his head and forcing him to sleep with another woman. To have any semblance of a claim on the moral high ground, at a minimum, he would have to file for divorce prior to sleeping around, and yes, when he's married, even one woman who is not his wife qualifies as "around."
"Nothing she did could have the effect of holding a gun to his head and forcing him to sleep with another woman."
That is true in the exact sense, but let's be adults - are we supposed to expect that one person can make someone else miserable without them seeking emotional comfort elsewhere? I don't agree with your implicit assessment that _any_ mismanagement of the marriage on her part is negligible while his adultery is not.
I don't watch the show so I have no idea what went on with these people, I'm just asking as a theoretical principle the same principle the article in question is asking: shouldn't deep emotional abuse be seen as significantly as adultery?
Topher:
I'm not so quick to see someone who has suffered "deep emotional abuse" from a spouse as a victim. The person would have had to date and spend time with an emotional abuser BEFORE marrying them. After the marriage the minute the abuse started they will have had the opportunity to annul the marriage or divorce the person at any time. So when someone whines "my husband/wife emotionally abused me for 20 years, boo hoo hoo." I wonder what role they played in perpetuating that abuse and why they didn't leave the marriage at the gitgo.
However, it is completely feasible that someone in a marriage finds out their spouse has been unfaithful.
As far as Jon and Kate was concerned, Jon at any time could have told Kate he was finished with the marriage and sought advice from legal counsel as to how best to split up. After he moved out of the house and got a legal separation he could have enjoy all the booty he wanted. If he had done that he would have been a more sympathetic character. Instead, he decided to add more drama to this already dramatic marriage with infidelity.
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