“I DON’T KNOW SMUT, BUT I KNOW WHAT I DON’T LIKE”

Today in the Chicago Sun-Times, Richard Roeper is talking about what’s really obscene on television:

I’ve never seen an entire edition of “Maury,” but every once in a while I’ll click upon the program — and it never fails to stop me in my tracks.

Now I’m sure Maury Povich does many a program that lifts the human heart, but when I tune in it seems like they’re always doing a variation on the same, breathtakingly immoral show. A young woman in heavy makeup is sobbing and saying she’s sorry, and a young man with a mullet or cornrows is screaming at her (or jumping for joy) because he’s just learned through the miracle of DNA testing that he’s not the father of her baby. The deeply concerned Maury hovers about, comforting the young mother and trying to calm the non-father.

It’s grotesque television, and Povich and his producers should be ashamed of themselves for exploiting these young couples, who do not appear to be Harvard-educated sophisticates. What is the purpose of these programs with titles such as “I’m Back for the Third Time to Find My Baby’s Father” (an actual edition of “Maury”) other than to humiliate and degrade these people?

He is, of course, spot-on. Most of these daytime “talk” shows are no better than freak shows of human suffering, a Grand Guignol of sexual misconduct. And, indeed, the point of these shows is not to help the individuals who appear as “guests;” the point is to make you, the viewer, feel better about yourself, since you’re probably not as screwed up as the wretched folks you’re seeing on-screen.

Assuming, of course, that those poor souls are being truthful; unfortunately (or maybe fortunately), sometimes the guests are not what they appear to be. But why let the truth get in the way of a good story?

Still, even if the situations displayed on “Maury” et al. aren’t 100% true, they certain seem that way, and they undoubtedly ring true for a significant percentage of their audience. So it’s fair to say that these shows trade in realistic human misery. And that, to me, is more offensive than Janet’s breast or Bono’s f-bomb. It’s not morally right to pretend to help people for purposes of entertaining an audience by exposing the moral shortcomings of the people you’re trying to help.

And, in case you’re wondering, no, I don’t like it when Dr. Laura does it, either.