Inner Monologue and Bad TV

Hmmmm. Transitions, transitions, transitions, transitions. If I were a transition what would I be? Wonder twin powers, form of, transition. If I were a transition and you were a lighting effect what kind of story would you tell about me? And how would sound be a part of this story-telling? And what do these transitions we speak of look like? What is their physical life?

This is why I go from being a relatively well-rounded person (maybe, sort-of) to the most uninteresting, self-absorbed, generally dull person possible when I am working on a show. I'm sorry. It doesn't make me fun to be around, I know.

And yet I am probably worse when I am not working on a show because then I just feel like a vestigial limb to the world.

Delightful.

So okay, I watched this on the TV at the gym this morning. Does anyone else find it a little disturbing that a former super model without any medical credentials is doing shows about eating disorders? At least for the portion I saw there was no recognition of the fact that Ms. Banks has spent most of her life in an industry that has done little else but enforce to young women that the ideal of beauty is a woman with the body of a pre-pubescent thirteen-year-old.

So the two girls I saw were both bulimic. And the one was on with her boyfriend, who realized she was bulimic and started crying when he talked about how helpless he felt about the situation. These are really big things, and so should be addressed in a private setting with a professional. The girl herself looked unshaken, her facade never cracked.

So then Tyra looked at her and said, "Look at you boyfriend. He is crying. That is a really hard thing for a man to do. So how does that make you feel?"

What?! This is lieu of professional help. Tyra Banks, ladies and gentlemen.

The next girl was still in highschool. She had been doing better about her bulimia but then the boy's soccer team had started a rumor that she slept around and had an std. Tyra had her look straight into the camera and say something like "I don't sleep around" to all the soccer boys. Tyra then looked straight at the camera and said, "She doesn't sleep around."

Highschool is a tough place to begin with. And this is supposed to help?

My feelings about talk shows are that if they owe up to being total mindless crap, then at least there is some honesty there. Like, Jerry Springer or Jenny Jones. But when they purport to actually be helping people - I mean, really? A public forum for extremely private matters is supposed to make things better? Really, really? Unless you are Oprah, you just don't have the resources to pull that off.

So says I.