Who do we love to hate and what can we learn from them?<\/p>\n
One moment: a frumpy, uni-browed, Scotswoman stands at a mic to sing for an audibly disapproving and skeptical audience.\u00a0 It\u2019s not even clear as to why she would leave her cave, much less be so audacious as to waste ninety, precious seconds of their time.\u00a0 But then, as if heaven itself had opened, a voice erupts from deep within her.\u00a0 After catching its breath, the audience roars with applause.\u00a0 Ah yes, now they can celebrate her.<\/p>\n
The Susan Boyle moment is awfully rare though.\u00a0 The rest of the time the ogres and bush babies assure us of our prejudice, leave the stage, and go back to Appalachia or wherever it is they come from.\u00a0 It\u2019s unfortunate but true, they\u2019ve got to know how ridiculous they are.\u00a0 The only alternative is to have no standard for excellence.\u00a0 Besides, if we don\u2019t stop them how many more freaks will show up the next round?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
We love when the losers make good, don\u2019t we?\u00a0 We rally behind them when success is theirs for the taking.\u00a0 On the Biggest Loser<\/em> (or as Dr. House calls it, America\u2019s Fattest Fatty<\/em>), we watch a fleet of morbidly obese people grunt and groan their way from voluminous to victorious.\u00a0 We wince when the trainers get in their faces yelling and spouting profanity, tearing them down a la \u201cdrill sergeant style\u201d but it has to be done, no?\u00a0 After all, these are matters of life and death.\u00a0 It may even be said that the trainers practice tough love.\u00a0 They care enough to rip the contestants to shreds. Pandering to their emotions has served only to multiply the problem.\u00a0 The staggering success of the show is not to be overlooked.\u00a0 By its methods, dozens of contestants have defeated their monstrous BMIs and thousands of others have been motivated to follow suit and get it together.<\/p>\n I say, bravo.\u00a0 This national phenomenon effects impact\u00a0 much heavier than total pounds lost.\u00a0 Still, I cannot help but wonder what happens to those who fail to overcome, those who despite their best efforts literally remain big losers. <\/strong> Don\u2019t be ignorant, not everyone who is fat is so because they lack willpower.\u00a0 Many of them have endocrine diseases, Cushings syndrome for example, which exist as precipitating factors of weight gain and the inability to lose weight.\u00a0 Similarly, those talent show audition \u201cwackos\u201d likely have mental illness, evidenced by their ever-present delusions of grandeur.<\/p>\n These people are sick, right?\u00a0 Who mocks someone like that?\u00a0 I have.\u00a0 I would never ridicule a stage-4 cancer patient or a mentally retarded person.\u00a0 Surely, this is different, except it\u2019s not.\u00a0 I don\u2019t suppose it would make for very good television to show someone who sucks at life season after season without progress.\u00a0 We like to reserve those people for special interest stories and episodes of Extreme Makeover<\/em>.\u00a0 But those people aren\u2019t so compliant, they won\u2019t stay put.\u00a0 Oh no, they rudely interject themselves into my actual reality, into my workplace, into my neighborhood, and into my church.<\/p>\n If I cannot manage to be nice to these outcasts when separated by the glass of my TV screen I know I am even less polite when I have to deal with them directly<\/strong>.\u00a0 If I can barely tolerate their imperfections in short segments I am unlikely to take the time to get to know them.\u00a0 I really should though because these are the kind of people Christ was most concerned about.\u00a0 I\u2019ve said all of this as if I do them a favor by reaching out.\u00a0 It\u2019s more likely the other way around.\u00a0 The loser\u2019s standby retort, \u201cWho are you to judge me?\u201d\u00a0 falls flat before panelists, but in my ear the question aches.\u00a0 Who am I to judge them?<\/p>\n I am thankful for those people who tolerate me and even more for those who love me regardless of my incompetence, neurosis, and sin.\u00a0 A major concern of reality programming has been that the quick brush of fame and the public scrutiny that come with it are more than some contestants can handle.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know that I could handle it.\u00a0 Susan Boyle couldn\u2019t.\u00a0 The genre doesn\u2019t innocently show what is, it aggravates the conditions.\u00a0 So where crazy pre-exists, look out.\u00a0 Without the people who support me, I\u2019d likely be dreaming an impossible dream, running headlong into a psych ward, and having not the first clue.<\/p>\n The freak on TV really could be me.\u00a0 I don\u2019t want it to be but the thought is as awe-inspiring as it is scary.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In his debut article, Chase Livingston explains the dangers of reality television’s obsession with “losers.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1240,"featured_media":4798,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,11,19],"tags":[139,1207],"class_list":["post-4759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-headline","category-television","tag-bestof","tag-susan-boyle"],"yoast_head":"\n