posted on May 15, 2001 02:39:15 PM new
I just moved into a new apartment, and there's no cable TV. I get one channel, and that channel airs the Jerry Springer show three times a day. Now I get it.
I never understood the popularity of that show. I get it now. It's fun to mock the 300-pound trailer park lady who's having an affair with her married son. I GET IT! It's fun to mock the midget who's having a homosexual affair with her brother's wife. What a bunch'a loozers!
Well, count me in as new fan. This is so cool. Jerry!! Jerry!! Jerry!!
posted on May 15, 2001 03:21:04 PM new
I think that there's some very telling sociological phenomena stimulated by shows such as that one. Though they display some of the most outrageous and perhaps unlikely scenarios in human interaction, the result is the exposition of the pervasive meanness and pettiness of the viewer. I don't watch those shows, but get exposed to them in a particular waiting room that I have to go into. From that experience I had only
had a passing opinion of the show's result, but now, with this, I'm convinced that I was correct.
posted on May 15, 2001 08:24:19 PM new
Why would I take time to sit and listen to someone that is of a class of people who would never be welcome to sit at my table and have dinner with me?
posted on May 15, 2001 08:50:18 PM new
I'm not sure the people on the shows represent other "classes" of humanity (whatever they could be), so much individuals who seem to take more interest in one another than we think appropriate. Take Thursday's show, for example.
5/17/2001 "When Lovers Erupt!"
Roger has been a busy guy. He’s been sleeping with his girlfriend’s mother… And her aunt too. Roger is clearly a cheating dog, but all three woman still want him. Next… Jeff suspected that his wife, Dee Dee, was cheating so he brought Springer Cam along to help him bust her. But Jeff didn’t expect to find her at home in their hot tub with Bernard, a man old enough to be her father! Dee Dee is ready to dump her husband for her aged lover. Later… Brenda is here to tell her lover’s wife that she’s about to lose her husband! But once we meet her husband, he reveals that he’s not worth keeping!"
http:www.jerryspringer.com
Personally, I love the "Final Thoughts." For the uninitiated, here's a sample. The following are Jerry's reflections following a lively show involving career decisions by a lady of the evening:
"I'm often asked whether I'm ever shocked anymore by what I hear from my guests on the show. The truth is that I'm not surprised by any of today's revelations... The modern age of technology has not made us any more or less moral. Indeed, the notion of adults offering themselves up for some kind of sexual endeavor for the right price is as old as civilization. When painting was developed, someone figured out the profitability of reducing sexual thoughts to print. And then came photography and we had our first pictures of naked women since the great and not so great painters fed our fantasies. And the magazines and movies and video and the telephone. Indeed, whatever means of communication mankind develops, what inevitably will be communicated among all the other messages that make us what we are, or at least reflect who we are will be the message of sex. As with any other technology we will argue about it, decry its influence and say 'this kind of stuff shouldn't be turned on!' But it will be, so long as men are. Until next time, take care of yourself, and each other."
posted on May 15, 2001 11:14:59 PM new
I recently saw my first Springer show. Now, maybe I'm a little slow, but with so much commotion going on, all the yelling and people running around, I never could understand what anyone was saying! I got tired of trying to figure out who was what, real quick!
Furthermore, I don't believe most of those people really do that stuff. I think they're mostly exhibitionists who get together and make up things, just to get on tv.
posted on May 16, 2001 05:11:21 AM new
Aw, c'mon ! The popularity of the Jerry Springer show springs from ONE fact only!
After just one viewing, you can sit back and know that you're not as crazy as you thought you were and your problems are rather miniscule in comparison!
posted on May 16, 2001 05:47:21 AM new
Glad to know that Australia are'nt the only ones to suffer the stupid show. At least "Ricki Lake" doesn't pay the guests to put on an act. (Not that I watch that show either)LOL
posted on May 16, 2001 06:55:06 AM new
Not reality? I could send my brother-in-law straight to the show without any prep at all and he would fit right in. He just has no conscience at all and there is absolutely no telling what he will do. Why the family will continue to have anything to do with him is a deep mystery to me. I figure his wife will put up with him until he brings some vile disease home. That might be enough to make her see the economic benies are not worth it.
posted on May 16, 2001 07:39:17 AM new
Ol' Jerry's final thoughts remind me of what happens in some forums. The set up, the bait and what follows, then after the action, chair throwing and name calling, Final Thoughts from the instigator saying what fools everyone is to get so upset. Dumb.
posted on May 16, 2001 07:49:45 AM new
Can you say Manipulation? I was involved in a medical research study that required our presence for a full day once a week for 3 months. The day started at 6AM and lasted til 10PM. There was only one room where the "Lab Rats" (us) could stay unless they were running various tests or we were eating our meals.
That damned TV kept getting switched to all the trash shows (what else is on during the day?)
I tried to read (we weren't allowed to go outside or sleep) I will tell you I have to wonder how accurate those tests turned out since I was in a vexated state for the better part of the day, due to the stupidity and contrived drama I was exposed to all day long. Stress plays a very large part in diabetes and we were stressed.
posted on May 17, 2001 07:04:20 AM new
Although I've become jaded on Jerry's shows. I was lucky enough to have seen the family of my only 'enemy' appearing on Jerry! It was the ultimate in satisfaction.
It once again verified my having shown them the door long before.
posted on May 17, 2001 07:20:31 AM new
One thing I've never understood about that show. Every time I've seen it (maybe a dozen or so times), the guests *all* have sourthern accents. Why is it that Springer guests all come from the South?
posted on May 18, 2001 09:57:44 AM new
Jerry Springer is my hero.
I come home after a horrible day, take off my shoes, grab a glass of water, put my feet up and LAUGH MY BUTT OFF!
Fake hair flying, clothes getting ripped off - what more could a girl ask for? Maybe the food fights?
Oh ... and let's not forget the guy who dates the girl who is really a guy but now he has to dump the guy because he is really in love with the hermaphrodite across the hall that was once married to the mother of the guy who really wishes that the woman he is in love with really was a woman and not just a man who is a female wannabe.
GOT IT? You don't have to ... just sit back and laugh your butts off too!
posted on May 18, 2001 10:04:57 AM new
The question is not 'Why do people watch??
it is "Why do people go on the show?"
Not only the people who want to make the on-air confession---but the people who are invited on because somebody wants to confess something to them---DUH!!! Answer below
He/She is sleeping with your Best Friend's sister's half brother's transgendered mother.
posted on May 18, 2001 12:05:00 PM new
Seriously, young impressionable people see this show and think this is the way "normal" people behave. ewwwwww
Not my name on ebay.
posted on May 18, 2001 12:10:43 PM new
Unfortunately, many people let what they see on Jerry Springer shape their opinion of transgendered people. Tantamount to forming an impression of black people based on a minstrel show.
posted on May 18, 2001 12:59:43 PM new
And sadly, not just "young" impressionable people.
Last summer I was sitting around one evening with some friends, drinking beer, and the subject rolled around to the Springer show and one installment which featured a pariplegic woman whose arms ended just above the elbow. Apparently, it was just hysterically funny when she confronted her cheating husband, her stumps flailing. They all thought it was a real scream. Those who hadn't seen it said they wished one of my friends had taped it.
I couldn't believe that these people -- friends who I had had for ten, fifteen, twenty years, who I liked and thought I respected -- thought this was such a scream. Since when did ridiculing disabled people come back into vogue? When I was growing up I was taught that mocking people -- particularly those who you feel are "less fortunate" -- was not nice, and I find the whole concept extremely distasteful. Just because it's on TV, and has Jerry Springer's stamp of approval, doesn't make it right. Our whole popular culture now seems to be geared to the mentality of a ten-year-old who has extremely low self-esteem.
Seeing people at their absolute worst -- and I'm also thinking of the audience chanting "Whore! Whore! Whore!" as well as the guests -- is not anywhere close to my idea of entertainment. The whole thing makes me very sad.
I don't hang out with those "friends" anymore. Yuck.
[ edited by triplesnack on May 18, 2001 01:02 PM ]
posted on May 18, 2001 01:05:08 PM new
triplesnack,
As the old saying goes, there's strength in numbers. Probably no one of your friends would engage in such ridicule alone, nor would most audience members scream "whore" at anyone by themselves. In a group, however, they feel safe enough to do it.
posted on May 18, 2001 01:05:33 PM new
On the other side of the coin, why would that woman with the flailing stumps appear on that show to begin with? I was flipping through channels and paused long enought to see a man with no legs, crawling around on his arms and hands and grasping the girlfriends ex boyfriend and everyone in the audience thought that was a hoot too. Dont let them kid you. Those people might not have arms or legs, but that doesnt mean they arent lowlifes just like those who DO appear on the show WITH legs and arms.
posted on May 18, 2001 01:08:42 PM new
Same concept of coyotes, spaz. They are brave in a pack. Catch one alone, and they run for the hills from whence they came.
