Telling ’em “No.”
I was never what you could describe as a Whitney Houston “fan,” for whatever reason. I’ll stipulate that she had what is probably the most prodigious talent of any pop singer ever, but none of her songs struck a chord with me (get it? lulz). I don’t say this to demean her accomplishments; we all know my taste is ridiculous and absurd. I mean, I have an “Evan and Jaron” mp3 on my phone.
You know what? Let’s come back to this.
Last fall, after William (our latest and last offspring) was born, and HW and I spent much of the day sitting in front of the TV either feeding him or trying to get as much rest as we could while he slept, we watched a fair amount of TV. This is how, for example, we plowed through 4 entire seasons of DVR’d “The Big Bang Theory.” We also spent a lot of time watching “Hoarders” and “Toddlers and Tiaras,” and I’d like to compare and contrast those shows a bit.
We watch them, like everyone else, because they make us feel better about ourselves, as homemakers and parents, respectively. If you’re ever feeling depressed because you don’t have time to keep the house spic and span, spend 15 minutes watching Matt Paxton and his crew bag up dead cats and rotting adult diapers, and you will feel much better about your cleaning skills. If your kids are misbehaving and driving you up the wall and you’re thinking “What the hell am I doing wrong with these maniacs?” then you should spend some time with the crazy-ass moms (and, occasionally, dads) who drag their daughters to pageant “lessons” and makeup artists and dress fittings and you will realize that whatever you may be doing wrong, at least your daughter is about 1/10 as likely to become a streetwalker as the girls on your TV.
America loves both shows (along with similar ones like “Hoarding: Buried Alive” and “Dance Moms”) because Americans love a good train wreck. The feeling you get when the door opens on a bedroom filled to the ceiling with old clothes and rat feces is pretty much the same one you get when you watch a 5-year-old girl stubbornly refuse to try on her new pearly false teeth while her white trash, coffee-can-shaped, and faintly maple-syrup-scented mother says “Now c’mon Pixeelu honey, we need to try these on, and then we’ll go get some sugar donuts.” There is, however, a key difference: enabling.
On Hoarders, you watch people who are clearly at a low point in their lives try to resolve their issues with the help of psychologists, organizers, and professional cleaners provided by the show. It doesn’t always work, but at least there are stabilizing elements there to try and improve the lives of the subjects. “Toddlers and Tiaras” has none of this. Every person that appears on the show is there to add to the insanity, from the “dance instructors” to the pageant officials to the make-up artists to the mothers themselves. Every one of them is either telling the child how perfect she is, or how she’s screwing up royally and has no chance of winning or ever becoming anything and it’s no wonder Daddy left. No one disciplines, no one models good behavior, every activity is carefully (and poorly) designed to get the child to perform on the stage and fulfill her parents’ dreams. Occasionally you’ll see some poor henpecked father, clearly not thrilled about what’s going on and certainly unhappy about his failings as a parent and husband being put on television for the world to mock. For the child, it’s a life of work, expectations, bribery, and the life-or-death world of “pageanting.” What she learns from this is, as long as she’s pretty and performs well, no one will ever tell her “no.”
Which brings us back to Whitney. Once she had established herself as a superstar, how many people do you think ever told her “No?” She was a meal ticket to everyone around her. Who would risk losing that? If Whitney wanted to go party, Whitney got driven to the party. If Whitney wanted to try cocaine, the mirrors and straws were instantly out. Adding Bobby Brown to the mix was like tossing a hand grenade under a propane tank.
Whitney was hardly the first talented person too achieve rapid fame and then burn out, and she won’t be the last. What’s the solution? Hell if I know. As long as there are people who profit from meteoric rise of talent, we’ll watch as talented people slowly kill themselves. Sometimes brilliant folks just need to be told, “No.” Ya know?
