Springer
morality
Jerry Springer
Morality
Copyright 1999 by Jeffrey Stueber, all rights
reserved
I must admit I love movies. Unlike those
individuals who perhaps stock up on the more famous boxed sets of
Star Wars or Die Hard, I am not ashamed to house an
old Dr. Who flick or a black-and-white version of one of those
"ufos buzz the Whitehouse" b-rated movies. I love the Walmart
six-dollar specials while refusing to purchase the $19.99
televised-ad specials (with tax, over twenty dollars) but do
enjoy viewing them if I can get my hands on them. I recently did
just that.
About a week ago I borrowed from a friend Jerry
Springer's Too Hot for TV, probably for the same reasons
most people wish to view this tape. They want to be shocked, as
I did. They want to be amazed, as I was. And they, if they are
men, want to see the beautiful ladies in various stages of
undress - something I saw plenty of. Among the guests Springer
had were a woman who slept with her sister's three husbands, yet
another woman who stole her sister's husband, feuding families
engaging in food fights over a mock dinner table, a transsexual,
a lesbian surprising her lover by announcing she is having
multiple partners, racists, exhibitionists, and others willing to
leave their spouse for less-than-substantial reasons. One
wonders what environment or parental upbringing these people came
from.
I was properly entertained, yet the underlying
moral themes of this tape remain. My wife once commented to me
that the popularity of this show is an example of the carnival-
attraction mentality. Just as people once went to the carnival
to see the elephant woman or the snake man, so we go to the
Springer show to see the "freaks" of our society. Rush Limbaugh
has also commented that to see the decay of morality and our
civilization, one only need look to talk shows like Springer's.
I think both have a handle on part of the total truth here. I
especially think the carnival analogy makes a strong point
because, like the freaks of the carnival, the guests on the
Springer show are every bit as much freaks of our society. Most
people, thank God and pass the hymn books, are not exhibitionists
or do not go to great lengths to steal our sibling's spouse away.
Most would rather settle their problems in private than take them
to a nationwide audience. But, in a world of "Jenny cam," "Talk
Soup," and Bill Clinton playing the saxophone on MTV, too many
people crave the limelight that television offers them. I think
of the Biblical parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector and
think the parallel between the Pharisee and Springer's guests is
too strong. Springer's guests are not only willing to stand up
and thank God, if they believe in one, that they are better than
others but are ready to flaunt their immorality ahead of
millions. In a world such as our's, people like the above can
find a little television sunlight to bask in after they crawl out
from under the rock they've been hiding under.
At the
end, Springer assures us these people are merely a little
"outrageous," perhaps overly eccentric. How boring would it be,
Springer laments, if there was no outrageousness such as this.
We are told because Springer and his crew report the
outrageousness does not mean they approve of it no more than
reporting a murder approves of the murder. Then he closes with
his standard "take care of yourself and each other" line. Lights
out, the cameras are off. It's time to go home.
Well,
maybe it's not quite time to shut the lights off on our moral
dilemma we should have when viewing this tape. Surely I consider
myself a little outrageous, yet I do not seek out multiple sexual
partners or steal a sibling's spouse. Why, if Springer seeks
outrageousness, does he not focus on the eccentricities most of
us have which separate them from the traits of so many of his
guests? It's because his program won't sell, then, and that's
the key. Only by having people on his show as he does can he
possibly garner the attention his show gets. Now would be the
time to chide his guests for their behavior, but he cannot bring
himself to do so. His advice to be good to yourself and others
seems awful pale in comparison to the destruction many of his
guests create.
Springer might take a change of heart
and a change of his closing line. Instead of asking us to be
good to others and ourselves, perhaps he might utter that famous
Biblical line about money being the root of all evil. Or, at
least, he ought to remind us that money does at least give the
evil its needed attention.
Jeffrey Stueber
jstueber@globaldialog.com