So I’ve gotten caught up in watching TV lately. Not just any TV, mind you, but the TV that I suspect many of my students have seen. That TV of the omnipresent and ominous “M”. And what things do I see on said MTV? Well… that’s just the problem. There’s this polarizing interest I’ve noticed on the channel.
On one hand, you’ve got your “My Super Sweet Sixteen,” which is the most fascinating and repulsive show I’ve ever willingly subjected myself to (and yes, I’m eventually planning on seeing the movie adaptation as well). The beyond spoiled brats that will one day employ my students as service level workers cry their eyes out because their luxury SUV was ordered in the wrong custom color (“This Be The Verse,” anyone?). Last Sunday I got caught up watching a marathon of this show – MTV counted down to the most expensive parties thrown on the show. Parties two through five all reached well above the $300,000.00 range. And party #1, taking place in Jay-Z’s New York Club, featuring Kanye West, and with MP3 players acting as official invitations (there’s a quick $24,000 gone) was more than a million dollars. I honestly cannot stop watching this show. I honestly hate every moment of it that I watch. It’s like stopping on the road next to a car wreck…except that the car wreck is someone’s disaster of a childhood and it went on for three hours on Sunday.
On the other hand you’ve got “Engaged and Underage” a show that takes two love struck young ‘uns and watches them fight and make up and nuzzle and eventually tie the knot together. However, no longer are you seeing the Escalades or the Jaguars or the Bentzs or the Porsches. You’ve got teenage moms and high school dropouts and uncomfortable confrontations between future in-laws. Sure, it’s just as trashy as “Super Sweet Sixteen,” but this is an embrace of a different class of individuals.
“Sweet Sixteen” flaunts the excessively rich exploits of America’s wealthiest brats while “Enagaged” is the ol’ working class’ ridiculous flirting with an outdated convention (more on my animosity toward marriage in the future, I’m sure). Neither of these shows does anything great for the classes they speak of nor do they offer any values that I’d hope for my students to endorse. If anything these shows highlight the universal nature of smuttiness and prima donna behavior (and based on these shows, it’s not gender specific). I’m sure I’ll keep watching (believe me, I don’t want to either…), but I’m fascinated by this unifying and splitting dichotomy conundrum that is being inundated on our teens.
you know exactly how i feel about these shows, but let me add another to your list… hot ghetto mess on bet… no i dont watch bet, havent in YEARS cause well its MTV x a million worse.
i won’t link to it cause i will not be a willing participant of such nonsense, but there are two things that struck me as bullshit, well the two most important bullshite items cause there are MANY:
1. The creator of this nonsense states, “My mission with this site is to usher in a new era of self-examination.” *bullshite*
2. At the end of each “ghetto mess of the month” is the following quote:
“Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”
— Martin Luther King Jr.
Why do you invoke MLK to justify your bullshite? thats all i want to know. i think all versions of realty tv should be banned… well we’ve had this discussion before….
by the way… did you buy your femi ticket yet?!!!?!