Remember the ancient tale of Lady Godiva? Punished by her husband for coming to the defense of the poor and downtrodden he was abusing his goal was to humiliate and shame her by making her ride naked through the streets.
However, the townspeople loved and respected the kind hearted Lady Godiva and closed themselves within their homes in order to spare her the indignity and to in turn humiliate her cruel husband. Of course, there was one individual, as the tale goes, who peeped through his window to gaze upon the naked beauty of the fair lady...his name was Tom and hence the everlasting term "peeping Tom". As I recall the story he was either stricken with blindness or his neighbors poked out his eyes for his treachery. Those were different times!
Indeed they were. Recent history has proved that now we are a township of peeping Tom's and no cruel and heathen husband is required to strip beauty of it's dignity. We do it to ourselves and beg others to watch. And oh, how we watch! Day in and day out, 24-7, every "respected" news analysis show, every paper, every home page...all find a way to talk about the Anna Nichole story in a way that feeds both the frenzy and the desire to distance themselves from the overpowering realization that only a sick society dwells on this type of hype.
Yesterday I overheard a woman lament that her husband criticized her for her constant attention to every detail of this sad, sad commentary and devaluation of our perceived values. Her defense was that she was not alone. Her stats were that 110,000 people were sharing in her obsession. I don't know about the numbers but I am sure that it is an obsession and any psychiatrist will confirm that obsessions are illnesses.
Humanity has always been intrigued by nastiness...Bear bating, traffic accidents, public executions; you name it! But now we have mass communication that makes it possible for millions to see the purposeful humiliation of whoever chooses to occupy that throne at any given moment. The rapid decline in the content of reality shows is a testament to this commentary. We started off with what may have been a truly entertaining concept (I never watched Survivor but I'm guessing that there was some value to part of the concept, at least) but have now degenerated to really humiliating wife swapping, husband hunting, wife hunting and all kinds of transparently reverse Lady Godiva types of humiliation.
The only way to stop it is to stop watching. Please. Stop. Just turn off the TV. Go watch a documentary about Lady Godiva.
Sunday, February 25, 2007
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