Showing Us What's Real

I could get into a lot of trouble for this with friends and family, but that’s a risk I’ll just have to take.

Since I bought my new/used laptop last month, I try to spend more of my evening computer time using it while sitting in the living room. It helps me not cut myself off from family time while getting done the things that I need to get done (as well as my “vegg-out time” on Facebook, or playing games, etc.). Inevitably, this keeps me sitting in the living room long after Sharon has fallen asleep but the TV is still on and all too often, the show that comes on is “The Bachelor”.

I know – I should get up off my lazy behind and turn the TV off, but once I’m sitting and doing my thing on the computer (like this very moment; for example), I simply can’t be bothered with such tasks. So “The Bachelor” keeps playing in the background.

Most of you probably at least know this show, if not actually watch it. A flock of very young, very attractive women compete against one another to win the undying love and affection, and of course, Wedding Ring, from a young, eligible bachelor who just happens to have the very rare and fortunate combination of being more ridiculously wealthy than any one guy deserves to be plus looking like he just finished a photo shoot for GQ magazine.

As a general rule, I am offended by the existence of these so-called “reality shows” (although I admit that I did enjoy the one season of “The Biggest Loser” that aired in Israel, but that was different). I hate the hype of these shows; I hate the premise of these shows. Basically (in case you haven’t figured it out yet) I pretty much hate everything about these shows.

But “The Bachelor” especially bothers me.

While I’m sitting at the computer doing whatever it is that I feel I need to do, I get to hear a lot of the interviews on this show. The women keep talking about how “they really are falling in love with” the Bachelor who, at the end of each episode decides which ones are worthy to continue vying for his money – OOOOPS! I mean – his love and affection.

I would love to meet each of these woman – one at a time, look them each deeply in the eyes, gently put my hands on the shoulders, and the shake the stuffing out of them while asking “What the hell is wrong with you, you stupid bitch???”

I mean – seriously! You’ve been cooped with other Playmate dropouts waiting for your chance to have a date with this guy, you finally get that one date – a nice quiet romantic whatever-the-hell you did, complete with cameramen, soundmen, director, best boy, dolly grip and whoever else, then you talk about it as if this was the “real thing”??? You really connected with him so well that you’re ready to throw all caution to the wind and marry him if he’s only smart enough and perceptive enough to pop the question to you?

Tell me the truth, you silly woman – if he wasn’t as rich as a medium-sized country, or if he looked more like a John Q. Public – would that date have still been as “magical”? Would the spark be there and would you really be able to envision marrying this guy. Would he really be the one that, as Rita Rudner quipped “you can picture your kids spending their weekends with”?

The only thing that puzzles me more than the ludicrous nature of these shows and of the people appearing in them is their popularity among the general public. Shows like “The Bachelor” (that’s only one example – there are a plethora of others equally annoying) are being made, re-made, copied, in countries all around the world. The American versions are also carried and watched throughout the world. And people really get into them!

Fans honestly discuss – on Facebook, or over lunch, or wherever – who they think will be or should be voted off of these shows. They dissect the pros and cons of each “contestant” and analyze who they think is the “right” person to be chosen.

I especially don’t get how these shows are being passed off as “reality” when I don’t believe that in any way, shape or form they reflect real life. And why are people so into them?

Is real life so drab and colorless that we need shows like these in order to live vicariously through the lives of people that, in all honesty, have little if anything in common with us?

If these shows were marketed as dramas (or perhaps comedies would be more appropriate) then I would probably be less irritated by them, and unquestionably less offended.

If they were marketed as “entertainment” rather than “reality”, then it would be easier for me to say “Feh!” and ignore them.

Then it would be easier to be amused – by how silly the shows are and by how people are so enthralled by them. It would be similar to teasing those who “can’t live” without their soap operas, and similar to the way friends (and my wife) used to tease me for enjoying professional wrestling.

Or maybe all of the people that watch and enjoy these shows have it right and I’m the one missing something.

Perhaps what really bothers me about these shows is that I’ve become so jaded that I can’t even pretend that they do represent some kind of “reality“ that I could imagine myself ever living.

If that’s the case, maybe I should go back to watching professional wrestling…?

H*ckl*b*rry F*nn - Are you kidding me?

How far is going too far with even the best of intentions?

Apparently a revised edition of Mark Twain’s "Tom Sawyer" and “Huckleberry Finn” are going to be published soon, “updated” to be timely with the 21st century. These modernized versions are meant to bring the 21st century ideas of “politically correct” to the 19th century, and will be using the word “slave” throughout the book in place of the word “nigger” (yes, I know – I’ve just committed a cardinal sin by even using the word in any context – I’m supposed to say “the n- word”, but I confess, for all that I agree with and support “Politically Correct” there are some measures which strike me a silly and pointless).

These editions will also replace the term "injun" with "Indian Joe" (I don’t get why not "Native American Joe", but what do I know anyway?).

Now, don't get me wrong – I am all for Political Correctness, and I agree that there are words that are offensive words – but here's the rub - when in a particular context.

It seems to me, being the layman that I am, that a huge part of studying classic literature is to understand it within the context of when and where it was written. "Tom Sawyer" and “Huckleberry Finn” were written in 1876 and 1884 respectively, and both stories take place in the pre-Civil War period. The books reflect the language of the period – both when the books were written and when the stories took place.

What's more, it is very clear from the books that Mark Twain is speaking out (very forcefully) against racism, segregation and hatred. To whitewash the language used in the books and reflected the period of US history (no pun intended, well not too much, anyway) is taking away from realism of the novels.

As an avid reader, I can tell you that a huge part of my ability to "get into" a book is to feel that I am there – in the story, watching it all happen from the very front row. I cannot read a 19th century book and feel that I am witnessing the story first-hand if the language used is catered to 21st century sensitivities. It simply wouldn't work – it would feel fake.

But I think the issue goes deeper than the use of the words in the book.

It seems to me that people by and large get so caught up in the word itself that they have lost perspective in the use of language.

I mentioned in this blog a couple of months ago my earliest lesson in life about using racist words (the lesson taught me not to use slurs, not how to use them). Nevertheless, I think that there is a huge difference in using a word as a slur – and using the word in a conversation or discussion about the word itself.

A few months ago there was a huge uproar over Dr. Laura Schlesinger's radio show when she used the word repeatedly. Now, I have never liked Dr. Laura, and with all that I know of her, hear and see about her, I have never had any desire to hear her show, nor did her resignation particularly bother me.

But I was surprised at what I read about the whole incident. Every article and opinion piece that I saw talked about how horrible it was that she "used the n-word", and they even counted how many times she used it. Then I read the transcript of the broadcast – at no time did she use the word as a way of referring to blacks. That is to say, at no time did she refer to blacks as "niggers". She didn't.

Much of what she said was racist and completely unacceptable and an outrage was very much in line as was her resignation. But the outrage should have been over what she did wrong – and I don't believe that using the word "nigger" in the context that she used it was what she did that was so wrong.

But this seems typical of how society is trying to over-compensate for its racist past. We can't even talk about a word that is such a horrible racist slur without using a code for it. I'm sorry but that seems to me somewhat ridiculous.

If I talk about the anti-Semitism which I have faced in my life, I don't say that somebody called me "the k-word". No – I'll say they called me a kike. And if the newspapers report an incident where the word "kike" is written all over the walls of a synagogue, they'll report the word that was used – they don't pussyfoot around it giving it some kind of code name.

Lenny Bruce had an absolutely brilliant comic routine (I assume that this was an actual routine of his – I saw it in the 1974 bio-pic "Lenny" starring Dustin Hoffman). In it, he starts "counting" how many "niggers" he sees in the room, followed by the kikes, wops, greaseballs, spics and guineas – he even turns it into an "auction" keeping track of many of each he's tallied.

He goes on say that the point he was making is that "it's the suppression of the word that gives it the power, the violence, the viciousness."

He finishes it up by saying that if President Kennedy were to go on national TV and say the word "nigger" over and over until it didn't mean anything anymore, "then you'd never be able to make a black kid cry because somebody called him a nigger in school".

Maybe this is completely non-PC of me and I mightmaybe I'll have to follow Dr. Laura on the road to resignation, but I think Lenny hit the nail on the head. We need to focus on truly eradicating the real racism and the hate that is still far too prevalent in the world today, and not waste our energies in pretending the words themselves never existed.

Doing that with "Tom Sawyer" and “Huckleberry Finn” isn't censorship, it's revisionism.