Chan Lowe cartoon: Child exploitation
While we're all tut-tutting about what a lowlife slimeball Richard Heene is for allegedly concocting a hoax involving his six-year-old son ("Falcon"...it's as though he'd been planning this thing from the kid's birth) in order to enrich himself, let's remember the circumstances that even made the scheme possible.
"Reality" shows succeed or fail based upon whether they are able to adequately satisfy our inner voyeur.
We watch Jon & Kate, Wife Swap and Supernanny because (a) our lives are so dull that we hungrily substitute someone else's experiences for our own, and/or (b) it makes us feel superior to watch people whose lives are relatively out of control when ours are not.
Or maybe it's (c) something else. I'm sure an irate fan of the genre will enlighten me.
Anyway, there's money to be made if you can just come up with the right gimmick. You have to admit Heene was on to something, if only it hadn't fallen apart when the !@#$%^ kid broke from the script and admitted the whole thing was being done for the show.
Since fame and infamy are equally valid currency in the bank of public interest these days, the Heene family is not necessarily out of the money. The important thing is that we all know who they are now, and we find them fascinating. Ironically, the uncovering of the hoax might even give them clout to demand a bigger piece of the action.
For all we know, the kid was coached to admit the "truth." A hoax within a hoax. Bra-VO!
CHAN LOWE has been the Sun Sentinel’s first and only editorial cartoonist for the past twenty-six years. Before that, he worked as cartoonist and writer for the Oklahoma City Times and the Shawnee (OK) News-Star.
Comments
Who is this "we" you speak of? Remember, these shows don't have to get really high ratings to stay on the air - they just have to make more money than they cost to produce, and production costs are near zero. I've long suspected they are part of a plot that will eventually result in the networks holding a contest to see if opponents of the show will send in more cash to take it off the air than supporters send in to leave it on :-).
Posted by: Tom | October 20, 2009 6:00 AM
That's inner-taintment.
Posted by: Mike D | October 21, 2009 10:10 PM
Here's a little low down on how low the porn marketers and the kiddie predators can go. 90% of 8-16 year olds have viewed porn online (most while doing homework). 26 Childrens' character names (Including Pokemon and Action Man) are linked to thousands of porn sites. The average age of first Internet exposure to pornography is 11 years old. One in five children ages 10-17 have received a sexual solicitation over the internet.
Now I personally don't care what an adults sick little fetish might be. But when you try to turn your fantasy into reality by targeting children then there has been a line crossed, and these people have a serious issue. Leave the kids alone. They are going to figure out soon enough how the world really is, but perhaps we can allow them the sanctity of their childhood without the porn marketers, and particularly the pedophiles from corrupting or victimizing them any sooner than necessary.
Posted by: GreatDomainNow | August 19, 2010 11:50 PM