IT'S SLEAZY, IT'S OF QUESTIONABLE VALUE -- AND YOU HAVE A RIGHT TO SEE IT!

I finally watched a full, complete episode of the Jerry Springer Show last week. Sinatra, The Voice, had died, and from CNN News to just about every other channel, the tributes poured in as the chorus from "I did it my way" assaulted our ears. Burned out from the day's writing and news grind, I grabbed the remote... and there he was. Jerry. Sleazemeister of afternoon TV, Media Maesto of the televised wasteland.

Web Posted: May 27, 2020

Jerry Springer

"Why not," I though, grabbing the second half of a ham-and-chesse on onion roll. If I can listen to Ralph Reed and the other talking heads on CNN, or the Newt & Trent Show (Live from Congress!), surely I had the fortitude and stamina to survive an hour of Springer, minus the foot deodorant and suds commercials. "I need to do this," I though, even if it was just to check out what all of the outcry was about. Network news had pushed aside the latest on some world hot spot or famine or war just to inform us that America's most popular afternoon television program was using phony guests and staged fights. We could, after all, see that gratis Ted Turner, or the World Wide Wrestling Federation which is prime time brain food for millions of people.

The Springer Show wasn't much different. Guests were paraded on, and none of them really looked or acted like they just rushed out of the British Museum or the Widener Library at Harvard in order to attend. The theme of that day's program was something like "I've got a secret to tell you..." One girl informed her ex-boyfriend that "I've been seeing somebody else."

"Would you like to meet her new lover?" asks a sly Springer? The audience roars its approval. It's no-brainer time, as out walks another women, followed by her boyfriend, who says that all three are involved in a convoluted twist of erotic interests... you get the idea.

As if on cue, boyfriend #1 leaps from his chair and begins a poorly executed pugilistic encounter with boyfriend #2. Now they have my interest! I look carefully at the scuffle on the sound set. Cameras zoom in, the audience hoots and roars ("Jeeeery! Jeeeery! Jeeery!"), beefy ushers rush to the rescue. Pandemonium has broken loose, but in the midst of it all there is a staid Jerry Springer, arms folded across his chest with a calm, even deadpan expression. Does he know something that we don't?

I swear, everyone in the melee is laughing, and the punches are falling short. It is not exactly Ultimate Fighting. Somehow I am reminded by those "Psychic Circle" hot lines, where the anonymous host feigns surprise and amazement at the alleged powers of two seers. "Are you absolutely shocked by what this psychic has revealed?"

An hour later I hit the remote, grateful for the longevity of its two AAA-size batteries.

But no matter how he masks and obfuscates his own agenda, what Father Pfleger, and anyone else who advocates censorship, is proclaiming that his standards, biases and esthetic predilections deserve more consideration than the millions of viewers out there in the electronic market place. He knows what is best for them.

The Jerry Springer Show, like so much in the culture, may be testament to the claim that our society is truly dumbing-down. It may be a show in poor taste, but to judge from the ratings more people choose on their own to tune in Jerry than listen to, say, Julia Proust and the snooty-sounding announcers on the PBS ballroom dancing program. Then again, instead of watching Springer, I could have worn down the AAA's a bit more, flipped the channels, watched Discovery, or CNN, even the "Swamp Thing" on the Sci-Fi channel. I could also have read (Robert Stone's "Damascus Gate" cries out for my attention after five chapters), put on a classical music CD, or gone back to an incomplete article which still resides, menacingly, in my "To do" folder.

There is a Chicago Roman Catholic priest who is issuing demands and ultimatums to the producers of the Jerry Springer show, including one that by June 8, all violence must be edited out of the program. Father Michael Pfleger accuses Springer of peddling and legitimizing a kind of cultural sleaze -- which he might, indeed, be doing. But no matter how he masks and obfuscates his own agenda, what Father Pfleger, and anyone else who advocates censorship, is proclaiming that his standards, biases and esthetic predilections deserve more consideration than the millions of viewers out there in the electronic market place. He knows what is best for them. He, Father Pfleger, shall protect them from themselves.

How would the good Father react, though, if Jerry Springer made comparable ultimatums to a religious program? There are those of us who are convinced that Pat Robertson's claims on "The 700 Club" have as much verisimilitude as Jerry's guests; but I have yet to see any Atheist or separationist group demanding that Robertson not express his opinions on television, or that he should not have the right to do so.

Father Pfleger may be correct, perhaps Jerry Springer has pulled us into the depths of some media depravity, or perhaps millions of viewers who have made the show a syndication cash cow are willingly going along for the down ride. Then again, maybe it is the height of arrogance and presumption for Father Pfleger to demand that the producers of the Jerry Springer show conform to his tastes, biases and philosophy of what is good, proper and beneficial. Religious and political authoritarians have a nasty predilection for doing just that, and this priest seems to be no exception.

Nobody, not even Jerry and his audience of crass fans, is compelling Father Pfleger, his congregation, or anyone else to watch the show. Unfortunately, that sensibility is not mutual. Whatever his faults, Jerry Springer comes into living rooms as an invited guest, not a bully justifying censorship or the imposition of clerical dogmas onto the lives of millions of people. Jerry may be obnoxious, flagrantly deceptive, ultimately a bore. But I, and everyone else, can reach for the remote, and he leaves me alone. Alas, I can't do the same with Father Michael Pfleger.

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