Idiot Box: You are not the father

Think about something someone could tell you that would make you really, really excited. You’d whoop, scream, get out of your chair, and do a victory dance while a crowd of people cheered you on. But the information you were just told wasn’t that you’ve just won the lottery, or you’ve become an overnight international celebrity. It’s even better—in the case of this 14-month-old baby, you are not the father.
This situation surely sounds familiar, and no, I’m not accusing my beloved Voice readers of having been involved in paternity scandals of their own (although if you have, no judgment). I am, however accusing you of having—maybe because you were stuck at home sick, or you were in a waiting room at a doctor’s office—found yourself deeply, personally engrossed in an episode of Maury. Which, as far as morality goes, really isn’t much better.
Maury, like its more violent, more obscene, and markedly less entertaining counterpart The Jerry Springer Show, represents the rare breed of television trash that has withstood the test of time. Sure, we always have our rotating series of bad reality shows and sitcoms, but even such mainstays as The Real World can’t boast the breadth of viewership and consistency that these shows have. Maury spans ages and demographics, and proves that if there’s one thing this country can bond over, it’s spending a few hours in the middle of the day watching shameless specimens of humanity air out their very personal problems.
And boy, are they personal. Jerry and Maury have spawned such broadcast TV classics as the woman with a phobia of pickles and the 15-year-old who’s had sex over 300 times, in addition to daddy-guessing sagas like that poor white guy whose white wife gave birth to an obviously biracial child, and the one couple that—try not to gag—found out after having their first kid that they’re half-siblings. And for every episode, viewers turn out in unbelievable numbers to entertain their ultimate guilty pleasure, where there is no pretense of plot, no superfluous competition, nobody trying to heighten modeling or acting careers—just pure, up-front, no-frills trash.
Of equal importance to the trash is the man moderating it. An even-tempered, turtlenecked senior citizen, Maury Povich seems to be the least likely person to serve as liaison between a promiscuous woman and her child’s eleventh potential father. Jerry Springer, by contrast, is pretty carefully branded as a troublemaker, and his crowd’s teleprompted chants of “Jerry! Jerry!” cost the show part of its voyeuristic appeal (“look, honey, a real and unsolicited fight broke out on TV!”).
Maury’s guests don’t get into as many explosive physical fights as Jerry’s, and as such he has earned, if you can believe it, a classier reputation. Get caught watching Jerry Springer and you’ll immediately be judged for contributing to the success of such an exploitative, entirely fake television show. But if someone walks in on you watching Maury, he may not verbally ask you to bring him up to speed, but I can almost guarantee you that he’ll want to.
But although he seems a little incongruous to his surroundings, Maury’s attempts at foraying into other genres of television have failed miserably. He tried to host a game show in 2000 and co-hosted a news program with his wife in 2006, both of which were cancelled shortly after their debuts. Apparently, America doesn’t want to see Maury unless he’s talking to people looking to cure their crippling globophobia (fear of balloons—it exists, and he did a show about it). No, Americans need exactly what Maury has always given them—a zoo-like window into the lives of the most ridiculous, pitiable, offensive, miserable people our country has to offer.