A Bad Case of Clap For Everything

THERE ARE NO OBSCENITIES IN THIS COLUMN, BUT I DO USE THE ROUGHEST LANGUAGE I HAVE EVER USED.

I’m not a political sort of guy. I know virtually nothing about politics. The difference between Conservatives and Liberals is lost on me, although the best I can figure out from listening to Rush Limbaugh and others, is the Liberals believe in killing unborn babies, and Conservatives would rather wait until they’re born and have ‘em killed via tobacco, or firearms, or even a bit of capital punishment if need be. If there are any other differences, I’m unaware of them.
I say all that to say this…I do think a large segment of society has become Jerry-Springerized into mental oblivion. What do I mean by that? Well, think about it. In the good old days of television, the studio audience would applaud someone famous, or someone who had acted heroically, or someone who did had entertained them. Today, studio audiences applaud everything. And that’s thanks to Jerry Springer and that ilk.
For instance, I’ve seen the foulest talking, filthiest acting, most body-pierced, tattooed, scum of the earth types come on stage and start slapping their girlfriend’s secret lover, who also happens to be their own father, or mother, or brother, or sister, or milkman, and the audience goes wild.
The more trash talking, the more applause. In other words, these idiots in the audience have been conditioned, probably with applause signs, to put their hands together for the trashiest people that the producers of the shows can scrape out of a dumpster and bring on their shows.
I keep thinking that one day Oprah will do an entire show about “Audiences Who Clap at Crap.” Pardon my French.
So now we’ve come to the point that people like Rosie O’Donnell will go on TV and say, “Yep, we Americans are the terrorists and we’re torturing those poor, innocent Islamic captives,” and the audience will applaud wildly. Explain that to me. I get the impression that the audience is saying “Hooray! We stink. We’re horrible people.”
If Rosie’s audience really believes her…if they truly believe that Americans are torturing Islamic prisoners…if they really believe that George Bush orchestrated 9-11 for political purposes, is applause really the correct response?
In my day, you didn’t demonstrate shame or guilt or remorse by applauding wildly. It’d be like a judge pronouncing a death sentence and the prisoner would pump his fist in the air and exclaim, “Alright! I’m doomed!”
Again, this is not a political issue I’m talking about here. It’s simply pure logic. Why should we applaud our badness? What has happened is that the dregs of society have become celebrities via the Jerry Springers of TV land. The message is the badder you are the more famous you are.
Think about what the TV show COPS did for sleeveless t-shirts, or wife-beaters as they’ve come to be called. Because of the misplaced (aka non-existent) values of so many, it became cool to wear a wife-beater. Take that fact one step further and beating women becomes cool. Then turn on Maury or Jerry or whomever, and you’ll see the audiences applauding wife-beaters. You think I’m making this up?
We’ve become so conditioned to glorifying bad that people equate fame with badness. In other words, it makes sense when Rosie says the President of the United States is behind the killings of thousands of Americans because he’s famous, hence he’s bad. Let’s all applaud.
This rule is applied even in the elementary schools, where the good girls, the ones who believe virginity is still something to cherish, are teased and humiliated. Who become the role models when that happens? You don’t need me to tell you.
And so the bad girls grow up to be celebrities. When I was in school being known as a slut would be horrifying. Now, the cable news networks devote special programs to sluts, such as Anna Nicole Smith.
Remember Deborah Jean Palfrey, the Washington “madame” who was threatening to sell her phone records showing which D.C. notables had used her escort service? When whores hold press conferences and the major networks televise them, you know something is wrong. Except for those who’ve been Springerized, this all seems perfectly normal.
I sure am glad TV wasn’t like this fifty years ago. I don’t think I could have handled a Leave It To Beaver episode where June and Lumpy were an item, or, worse yet, Ward was caught in bed with Eddie Haskell.
And, if you think I exaggerate, watch just about any of today’s situation comedies. On second thought, maybe you’d be better served by turning the TV off. That would be something worthy of applause.