There are seven nice TVs at my health club. I spend a half-hour or so there 3 or 4 times every week to be able to justify my consumption of pizza and cheeseburgers. Today, 3 of the TVs were showing "Maury" on WGN and like watching a train wreck, I couldn't turn away.
I have heard criticism of this show from many people. I'm not much of a fan, nor am I the audience that this show is intended for. I do know that the show has been on TV for many years so there are obviously people watching it. The host is paid a pretty decent salary of around $14 million per year as reported by some of the web-sites that I checked, so "Maury" is generating income for many people as well as for a big TV network. So from that perspective I will give it the credit that it is due. I am not going to attempt to rip it apart as many have done. It is what it is - and the show lives on. I do think that there is a really bad message that it sends the viewers, and it has nothing to do with what the show projects on its surface and that message is what made me write this blog.
At some point, a few years ago, the show produced a segment called, "Who's the Daddy?" This is where they get a willing couple in a paternity battle to submit to DNA testing to prove once and for all the identity of the person responsible for impregnating a single mother who wrote to the show for help in this matter. I guess sometime it may be the accused "impregnator" who initiates contact with the show because he may believe that based on the baby momma's reputation that there is a decent chance that he could be the "impregnator" but so could a number of other people. By the way, I'm not even sure if "impregnator" is a word but I do not want to identify this group of males as"fathers" as I feel it would be insulting to most of the responsible fathers who actually support, take care of, and love their children and have not been forced to do so because of a court order.
Of course we get the couple's story. Maury builds the tension and then brings out the guy from backstage. For the audience its the kind of tension that is like showing your friends the cute little
mouse right before it is dropped into an aquarium containing a hungry snake. So now that the pot has been stirred there is a lot of on camera fighting, yelling and finger-pointing and finger-wagging. We all feel that one of these two "parents" is lying and we have to determine who it is. Who made the mistake? Who is at fault? All this on camera chaos leads up to the result of the DNA test, because we just have to know!
That's what stuck in my mind - the blame game and how it is so prevalent in our society. In our culture, when there is a mistake made, usually the first question asked is - Who's fault is it? In our minds, someone has to be right and someone has to be wrong. It is why there are so many frivolous law-suits. Hey, I tripped on the sidewalk and hurt myself. The sidewalk must not be level or maybe I bought defective shoes. It can't be because I'm clumsy, somebody is to blame! Look at the news every day. Who's to blame for the condition our country is in? Is it he Republicans or the Democrats? The arguing and finger-pointing in government is not much different from the scenes on daytime TV. And while the arguing is going on, nothing productive is happening.
In the case of Maury, there is a small child who does not care about the media circus. They just need food, clothing, shelter and to have somebody to love them and care for them. In the case of the government whether Republican or Democrat, there is a similar media circus and again, nothing productive is happening. We are all Americans, we are all human beings with the same basic needs. We live in a wealthy country, filled with educated people. Isn't there anyone who can stop with the finger pointing about who is to blame and actually start working fixing things? It is becoming more obvious that the answers are not going to come from our elected leaders. They are out of touch with the American people the way a sixty-something, $14 million dollar per year TV host is out of touch with a 17 year old single mother.
Maybe the real message we should take from Maury is this: There is so much turmoil that the show creates that everyone forgets that there are people profiting handsomely from it - people who are
happy with the way things are. Through it all, we are all entertained and distracted from the real
issues. Sound familiar?
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