As anybody who reads this site semi-regularly knows, I hate train-wreck reality TV with a passion. It's not even the kind of thing that I can take in stride and chalk up as good fun in a watching-zoo-monkeys-throw-shit-at-each-other kind of way.
Maybe that's why I actually do appreciate -- yes, I'll say it -- Heather Havrilesky's column today on the willingness of our culture to indulge any lost and attention-starved has-been's quest to perpetuate his or her own fame by another 15 minutes, and the effect this may have had on Corey Haim. Havrilesky's point is kind of that Haim was always unstable and self-destructive, and therefore precisely the kind of guy who could be chewed up and spit out by something as heartless as the nation's love of reality TV.
But while I agree with this assessment, I can't let Havrilesky completely off the hook: Keep in mind, her stock in trade is watching these kinds of crap shows and she really seems to enjoy them. She's willing to blame the people who greedily choke down reality TV's often toxic stew -- as well as acknowledging the desperation for the spotlight that drives those who hurl themselves in front of the cameras in the first place -- but she seems reticent to blame the shows themselves. You know, the producers who don't give a shit about doing what's probably right and are only interested in giving an America full of rubberneckers what it wants. In other words, she separates the people irresponsibly plumbing new depths of lurid and tawdry from the "culture" that supposedly demands it. The last time I checked, she was a big part of that culture, which makes her sudden introspective hand-wringing feel slightly disingenuous.
Regardless, and as you know I rarely say this about Heather Havrilesky, it's a decent read.
Salon: Corey Haim: Little Boy Lost as the Cameras Roll/3.10.10
No comments:
Post a Comment