Jon and Kate Plus Eight/TLC/Mondays

by Veronica Wilks


Oh Jon and Kate….how did no one see this coming?

The season premier of Jon and Kate Plus Eight marked my first time watching the show. I’ll admit I was intrigued by all the rumors and drama that have been going on for the past two weeks. Anyone who’s walked past a supermarket tabloid rack has surely seen the scandal
splashed across every tabloid: Jon Has a Mistress! Kate May Have a “Special” Relationship with her Body Guard! Is it OVER?

This came right before a season premier and in the midst of Kate’s book tour. They went on TV and gave statements more open to interpretation than Bill Clinton’s. The public was dying to know how TLC would handle the new season.

The much-anticipated premier kicked off with an episode that focused on the kids’ fifth birthday party, clearly filmed several weeks ago. To address the “issue,” it was interspersed with “Real World” confessional-style scenes with Jon and Kate talking about what was going on in real time. Kate talked about it for less than 20 seconds and then said she had to stop because it makes her too angry. “Jon made some mistakes and he was out and whatever,” was Kate’s bland description of the scandal. Um, out and whatever?! She sounded like she was describing getting a speeding ticket. Jon decided to apologize to his family, even though, “obviously, it was wrong place, wrong time.” Yes. It was the wrong time to bone a chick who was not your wife. Neither of them admitted it, but it was beyond clear that the rumors are true.

What struck me more than anything is the fact that anyone watched this show for so many seasons. Who are the “fans?” Who is watching this train wreck? These people are unattractive and cold with not cute, boring babies. That does not a reality hit make. Jon is a slightly grown-up version of the always-stoned minority frat boy. You know, the one who was never hitting on girls and was always sitting around just saying, “Duuuuude….whatever,” while playing N64 with the one Indian kid in the house. He’s a stay-at-home-dad, but not in the cute way. Kate, on the other hand, is your typical psycho shrew, with a reverse mom mullet and a huge ego.

First, Jon and Kate talked about how much they hate the paparazzi. Kate complained that cameras followed them to the party store, even though, you know, TLC cameras followed them to the party store. She said that she didn’t want her kids to feel weird with a camera following them, even though, you know, she lets cameras follow them in their house. Jon said he didn’t sign on for paparazzi even though he signed on to let cameras be present in their lives. I couldn’t quite figure out how people who went on a reality TV show for years and used it as a starting point to build a franchise, and, in Kate’s case, fund massive plastic surgery efforts, could complain so much about the paps. This is not the case of a reclusive actor being followed. These
are people who want the attention.

So Kate threw her kids a birthday party with a bounce house and some little friends. It’s hard not to feel bad for the kids. Even though they aren’t as cute as I like famous children to be, I don’t hate them. It’s not their fault they were born in a litter. And yes, this scandal is going to make their perception of their parents’ relationship complicated and sad however, given what I’ve heard and witnessed, they were going to realize on their own that their mother was verbally abusive and their father had checked out long ago.

The show left me depressed. I wanted the hour to be over. Reality TV is supposed to be a train wreck, but that train wreck should involve binge drinking, fist fights, lap dances and/or racial slurs. The people should be incredibly good-looking or at least rich. Why would anyone want to watch awkward silences and uncomfortable tears from people who are like the neighbors whose house you never wanted to play at as a kid?

Toddlers & Tiaras/TLC/Tuesdays at 10pm

By Imogen V. Shahrazad

When I was a little girl, I read books about cats and horses and barely brushed my hair. In fact, when my mom insisted on combing out the snarls, I frequently cried. I wore gigantic, ill-fitting t-shirts until I was thirteen. So you can imagine how little I could relate to the pageant girls of TLC’s reality show Toddlers & Tiaras.

The show highlights one child pageant per episode in locales as varied as Pittsburgh, PA, to small town Georgia. The girls, ranging in age from barely walking to the brink of puberty, sashay awkwardly across the stage in glittering dresses so expensive their parents missed a mortgage payment, while eager beaver pageant moms (an unmistakable breed, similar to Chihuahuas) mime the girls’ choreography and pray their children’s parade float-sized hairdos don’t fall flat like bad soufflés.

Tacky? Yeah. But, as an unabashed feminist and generally concerned human being, I also find it fairly alarming.

It’s difficult to tell what is worse: the parents’ seemingly blind enthusiasm for kiddie pageants or the kids’ confusion regarding whether or not they actually like competing. At the Stars of Pennsylvania pageant (a glitz pageant, as opposed to a natural pageant, whatever that means), we meet, among others, Meadow, Angela, and Roni. Meadow, a seven-year-old future Stepford wife, has competed in over one hundred pageants. Angela is a sweet eight-year-old from a large family, and Roni is a highly entertaining and petulant two-year-old.

My first concern is financial: while Meadow’s family seems to have no trouble paying thousands of dollars for a dress she’ll grow out of in three months, Angela is only one of five kids in a military family and Roni’s mother requires her own mother’s help to pay for pageant accoutrement—in the form of moving back into her mom’s house because she can’t pay the rent. While there’s no shame in having financial difficulties, is it justifiable in the face of the possibility that these girls don’t even like pageants?

While Meadow is a lost cause (at this point, the poor thing is practically a My Size Barbie), Roni expresses her desire to go swimming rather than continue the pageant (and later falls asleep in her mother’s arms, as toddlers do). Perhaps the saddest moment is when Angela doesn’t win the big crown and tells the camera, in heartbreaking monotone, “I like natural pageants more than glitz pageants.”

Pro-pageant people argue that competition boosts the girls’ self-esteem and provides them a fun hobby, but seeing little girls in sequined dresses, spray tans, and hair pieces cry over losing the top title is, to put it simply, soul crushing. Girls don’t need to hear that their worth is wrapped up in their ability to blow kisses at judges or smile the prettiest; they get enough of that just watching television and living in America.

Little girls need to be what they are: kids. They should play in the dirt with My Little Ponies and read bedtime stories with their parents. They should sing and dance to Yo Gabba Gabba, not struggle through some unnecessarily complicated choreography in a room full of strangers. If my six-year-old sister ever told me she wanted to do a pageant, I’d sob. Loudly.

Oh, and you know the thing that freaks me out the most? Flippers. Flippers are fake teeth the kids can slip on over their real teeth to hide gaps from lost baby teeth. OH. MY. GOD.