Jon and Kate: Just Go Away

Jon and Kate: Just Go Away
by Mike Cohen

Everywhere I turn these days, they’re there. The omnipresent Jon and Kate.

Pictures of a generally sneering but attractive woman and her scruffy-looking and vaguely unhappy husband (I assume) are all over the internet these days. Articles with negative quotes from various Jon and Kate family members abound. I don’t watch reality television shows; in fact, I strongly disapprove of them. So I have no idea who these people could possibly be. However, with all the media attention on this new celebrity couple, I felt compelled to look into the matter, if only to satisfy my own curiosity.

In case you’ve been living under a rock like I have, here then is the deal with Jon and Kate:

They are Jon and Kate Gosselin, and they star in their own reality TV show on the TLC cable network called “Jon and Kate Plus 8,” the “8” referring to their abundance of children, gleaned from a set of twins and a set of sextuplets. This is a very popular TV show, I’ve learned. Apparently it is EXTREMELY popularNow in it’s fifth season, I’ve learned that the fourth season finale was watched by more than 4.6 million viewers. . And the All-American Gosselin family are now the proud purveyors of all kinds of merchandising as well, including Kate’s upcoming third book  (there are nearly a million copies of her first two books already in print), and DVDs from the TV series.

I guess it’s like having a live video feed in your wacky neighbors’ house; people get to watch this couple do whatever it is couples with eight children do, at least when the cameras are rolling. The Truman Show has come to life at last! And to make matters worse (or better, depending on whether or not you are a fan of the show), they seem to be having marital problems. Oh fun! NOW we get to watch a marriage implode! And it’s NOT OURS! How great is THAT?

Well, I don’t think it’s so great at all.

Why do I want to watch a bickering couple try to manage a house full of children? I have my own children, thank you very much. Having been in two marriages that both ultimately imploded, I can tell you that there is almost nothing fun about being in that situation. And I derive zero joy in watching other “regular” people’s lives air their dirty laundry on TV and in the online and print infotainment industries.

Oh wait, I get it now! We are supposed to LIKE watching other peoples’ lives fall apart on national TV because hey, it’s not OUR lives that are falling apart. It’s like when people slow down in their cars on the highway to look at an accident. “Oh look, a body on a stretcher!” We are oddly drawn to this nasty stuff; we simply cannot look away. “Oh look, that crazy married couple with a gaggle of kids next door are fighting again! Let’s sneak a peek at their amusing antics!!”

Uh, no thanks.

So now we have this entire Jon and Kate industry, which is providing oodles of profit not only for Jon and Kate themselves but more importantly for those in the infotainment industry. I’m not opposed to a little profit; after all, we’re not Communists are we ?(Thank you Don Barzini.) But really, when did it become acceptable to spy on our neighbors? When did we all become addicted to watching “real” people in “real” situations as our primary source of television entertainment? Did I miss an important social trend or something?

No, what’s really happening is that original TV programming has gotten expensive and the TV networks and producers have figured out a way to provide popular entertainment at a fraction of the cost of traditional entertainment. You recall traditional entertainment, don’t you? You know, with real writers and stories and real actors and actresses. But this kind of entertainment requires some measure of risk-taking on the part of the industry in the creative process. Hey, here’s an original story – will people watch it? Will we get enough advertising revenue from this?

The infotainment industry no longer takes many risks. What the fuck are they teaching in business schools these days anyway? Every decision made in that industry points to a pussified attitude that eschews risk in favor of the sure thing. Last time I checked, risk was part of doing business (and forget about Wall Street, which took risk-taking to an insane level). Yes, there is risk in the creative process. Yes, you cannot always control the amount of profit you will make on a product based on the creative process.

But the creative process is critical to a full and rich human existence. Without it, we would be mindless automatons, travelling to and from our meaningless jobs every day, seeking the fastest way to maximize our financial portfolios without any hint of authentic humanity, not ever taking any risks at all, and letting the pursuit of profit rule our world.

Oh wait.

So I am not happy with reality TV programming, not only because it represents the abandonment of the creative process in entertainment, but because we already have way too many commercials on TV, which makes me think that TV networks have already figured out how to maximize THEIR profits, and they are doing so by denying audiences true original programming, thereby ripping us all off.

Hey, business ripping off consumers! It’s as American as apple pie.

So please, Jon and Kate: I’m sorry you’re having marital problems but I really don’t care. And American Idol? Please stop. Popular music is bad enough. And B- and C-list celebrities: please get off my TV, I don’t care what you do in your spare time. And celebrity chefs and fashion designers and interior designers: just do your damned jobs and stop ruining television entertainment.

Jon and Kate, will you please go away, and take the entire reality television industry with you.