Yer gonna embarrass me in front of the other cultists!!!
Eeesh. Some parents, you know?
So yeah, in case you don't read my Twitter: I watch trashy downloaded television while I make the comic. One of my favorite shows, next to "Women Behind Bars," "Bodyshock," and "Forensic Files," is a gem called "Intervention." It's a reality show where a camera crew follows an addict around for however long it take to get humiliating footage, all the while secretly training the addict's family to stage an intervention. If you're a fan of how-low-can-they-go style human degradation, I really can't recommend a better hook-up.
A bulimic who consumes and throws up so much food in one day that she has to strip to pay her outlandish grocery bill? Got it. And I only wish I could find the "Leslie," "Laney," "Betsy," and "Cristy" episodes for you guys... You know you're in for a ride when someone gets the whole hour to themselves. Chugged mouthwash, schizophrenia being self-medicated with meth binges, and an on-camera, on-purpose pill OD, just to name a few highlights.
Kind of found myself in a bit of a conundrum with the "Lawrence" episode recently, though. See, Lawrence actually died.
Lawrence was a 30-something alcoholic, and by the time the film crew set up camp, his liver was sending loud-and-clear FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, STOP DRINKING signals, via massive, inexplicable bruising all over his body. His assistant needed to cut his food up for him like a toddler, he had testicular cancer he wasn't getting treatment for, and he was downing Big Gulp-sized cups of vodka in between puking up modest, but worrisome spatters of gore onto the rug. A good episode of Intervention has a lot of "woah-moments," But Lawrence was seriously nothing but one big WOAH all on his own.
He succumbed to his family's carefully-prepared intervention and went into treatment, but left before too long. He died a few months later in the episode's postscript from esophageal bleeding, which is something that can happen when you're putting away the booze like Lawrence is. Was.
After a bit of thinking about it, I'm gonna say I'm okay with that episode being filmed and aired.
Some people might say that making an exploitative documentary out of what were, literally, a suffering man's last miserable days and turning it into light entertainment is in poor taste, and I don't disagree. But most of reality television IS in poor taste, and to some degree, about suffering. Watching a 300-pound man shrieking in pain and vomiting after a 3-mile run on The Biggest Loser, for example. Or watching the skanky, pregnant 13-year-old on Maury Povich in the hot pants slapping her mom. It's all trash. Incredibly watchable trash. It's about discomfort and stupid decisions and, yeah, more than a touch of holy-shit-am-I-glad-that-ain't-me superiority. It's the firey car wreck you rubberneck to gawp at from the comfort of your own home. And if you like that sort of thing... No sense in assuming EVERYONE does, but enough of us do that they keep making the stuff... It's probably arbitrary to partition off how much suffering is too much suffering to put on TV. Particularly if the subject wants to play along.
Lawrence, like all Intervention addicts, was initially lied to about the nature of the filming. He thought he was taking part in a documentary about addiction, and had no idea an intervention was being planned. But still, he let the film crew in his house, and when things started to go completely to balls, he didn't kick them out. His participation was voluntary, like most reality show participation tends to be; even COPS will blur your face if you don't want to be on TV. And while he may not have known how dire things really were, he certainly knew he wasn't going to come out of this looking good.
He knew what he was doing, and he had the final say in it. That's really the most important thing, forget what each of us may or may not think is individually suitable for TV. That's about our own personal discomforts and limits. In the end, it was up to him.
Yeah. Anyway. Rambling.
