speaking of child exploitation...

[qthewetsprocket]

forget the heene family; did anyone watch america's funniest home videos this past weekend? the winning video showed a boy on the toilet - he looked about eight years old, and was slightly overweight - crying because he had diarrhea

Comments

[britgeekgrrl]

Ugh. Delighting in the misery and embarassment of others is exactly why I hate those programs. WTF is so bloody "funny" about the videos?

Sigh. Poor kid.

[qthewetsprocket]

i mainly watch it for the cute animal videos, like this pug excitedly fangirling the show and screaming like she's at a beatles concert (still makes me giggle). but the ones that the parents submit, knowing that they're exposing their child to public humiliation...? like i said, state nursing home. big time.

[kateorman]

*observes pug* I'm gonna be like that with Waters of Mars.

[qthewetsprocket]

imma be like that when the master comes back. :)

tv: 'he will knock four times.' bang-bang-bang-BANG!
Q: 'EEEEEEEEE!!!' *flaily arms at the telly*

(i mean, really, considering that i flippin' squeed when harriet jones's conference call in stolen earth made the effing answering machine beep out the master's drum pattern, i really do fear for my neighbors' ears on christmas day...)

[kateorman]

I caught a little of the Australian equivalent while at the gym (my main contact with popular culture these days) and could not believe that it was still full of little kids hurting themselves and crying. Not even in bizarre circumstances that might force a smile out of you, like the clip where the cat comes out of nowhere and jumps on the toddler - just ordinary tumbles and whatever, with some asshole dubbing dialogue over it to try and make it funny.

You know, from the parents' perspective, it probably was funny at the time, if that theory about laughter is right - that it's funny when you think something awful has happened and then find out it hasn't. omg toddler down, omg omg, no, she's OK. On a TV show, we never get the OK, leaving us queasy instead of relieved and laughing.

IMNSHO, showing clips where a child (or animal!) is hurt or distressed, outside of a news context, ought to be ILLEGAL.

And kudos to the kid's dog.

[qthewetsprocket]

a lot of the clips on afv show the victim getting up / giving the thumbs up after a particularly hellacious spill, but a lot of them don't; and i especially worry if it's a child or an older person. hips don't grow on trees, you know. and yeah, finding your child's distress 'cute' is one thing; but holding them up for public ridicule is quite another.

i remember one clip that won big a year or so ago: it was a little boy singing along to the mickey mouse club song, voguing and vamping his little heart out. the boy was much older by the time he was forced to come on the show with the clip, and he did NOT look happy about the world seeing his widdle performance AT ALL.

bottom line: it may all be cute to the parents, but i just wish they'd remember that the kid still has to go to school and face his peers the next day.

(much agreed about the illegal clips and the dog, too. it's disheartening how often animals are much better people than people are)