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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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© 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000 by American Atheists.
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