COMMENTARY: Cheap cuts on TV: Humiliating people for fun and profit

c. 1996 Religion News Service (Charles W. Colson, former special counsel to Richard Nixon, served a prison term for his role in the Watergate scandal. He now heads Prison Fellowship International, an evangelical Christian ministry to the imprisoned and their families. Contact Colson via e-mail at 71421.1551(at)compuserve.com.) (UNDATED) When it comes to plumbing the grimier […]

c. 1996 Religion News Service

(Charles W. Colson, former special counsel to Richard Nixon, served a prison term for his role in the Watergate scandal. He now heads Prison Fellowship International, an evangelical Christian ministry to the imprisoned and their families. Contact Colson via e-mail at 71421.1551(at)compuserve.com.)

(UNDATED) When it comes to plumbing the grimier depths of human experience, there are few frontiers left for television to explore. In the search for new lows, too many shows consider the degradation of human life to be entertaining. And that spells trouble for us all.


I’ve watched a bizarre trial unfold in recent days, featuring talk show diva Jenny Jones, who is on the witness list in a murder provoked by a show she hosted on secret admirers. A guest was brought on camera, only to discover that his”secret”admirer was another fellow. Three days later, the embarrassed guest allegedly took a shotgun in hand and blew his admirer away.

While the defendant’s alleged reaction cannot be excused, neither can Jones’ callous willingness to humiliate people for profit. And though it is true that one person’s humiliation hardly degrades all humanity, the problem is that humiliation and a celebration of the perverse have become standard television fare.

In one new game show this season, aptly titled”Debt,”people who owe huge sums of money tell how they got that way, and compete with one another for the grand prize, enough cash to pay off the debt. This may come as a surprise to some readers, but historically speaking, putting oneself into unmanageable debt has not been considered something to brag about. Quite the contrary, sinking oneself into debt reflected an inability to live within one’s means, which was widely considered to be a character flaw. But no more.

Next perhaps, we’ll have the”Drunk Driving”game show, the winner of which will receive the services of a lawyer who specializes in getting offenders off on technicalities.

People on these shows seem to have no sense of personal dignity. They will sing of their unfaithfulness and sexual perversions, or tell how they became obese or why they refuse to wash their socks. No wonder someone on an MTV program a few years back thought nothing of asking the president of the United States what type of underwear he preferred. And no wonder there was only muted surprise when the question was actually answered.

These shows have not arrived by accident. They clearly reflect a changing world view, one that considers the human being nothing more than a collection of quirks and appetites _ an animated piece of meat. What were once known as virtues are all but laughed out of the house.

Instead of honoring restraint and good taste, these shows award gluttony, sloth, pride, nymphomania, intemperance, and whatever other imbalances can be unearthed. The creed for our day: I binge, therefore I am.


We are left with a devalued creature, which is quite in keeping with the ongoing assault on the dignity and sacredness of life. This, after all, is an age in which defending a form of infanticide known as partial-birth abortion is a political cause celebre. If infanticide is acceptable, very little else will qualify as forbidden.

This freakish view of humanity, of course, has dire consequences, for a freak is hardly due the same considerations as a being who is assumed to possess an immortal soul. Having rejected the sacredness of life and having reduced humans to their appetites, society will be much less hesitant to dispatch them at the earliest sign of inconvenience. This is bad news not only for life at its earliest stages, but also for those whose”quality of life”is diminished by handicap or age. In times of economic and political crisis, those categories can be expanded wider still.

Popular culture’s defenders often point out that music, television, and movies merely reflect popular passions. This is not entirely true, of course. One doubts there are many people demanding gore-soaked pageants of mass murder, cannibalism and other subjects du jour. Those who do make such demands should perhaps be watched closely.

But many of our institutions, starting with the Supreme Court, promote the”man as meat”view. Unless checked, we must increasingly satisfy ourselves with being accorded all the rights, privileges and respect of a cheap cut of steak.

MJP END COLSON

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