In 1972 the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, in conjunction with NASA, founded a television network with the goal of using TV, which has long been thought to distract the brain from useful function, as a means of education. The network was later named The Learning Channel, or, for short, TLC.
Back then, the station was based on documentaries. And maybe, in a certain sense of the word, it still is—reality shows, which make up virtually all the channel’s current programming, are basically serialized documentaries. But the content that TLC broadcasts today teaches nothing to anyone, other than just how low a network can sink in attempt to attract viewers. And just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse than Strange Sex and Long Island Medium, well, here comes Honey Boo Boo.
Toddlers and Tiaras, the original show to feature six-year-old Honey Boo Boo Child, né Alana Thompson, already has a history of being morally reprehensible. Although some people are transfixed by mothers spray-tanning and false-teething their kindergarten-age daughters, feeding them Pixie Stix in hope of winning a six-inch-high crown, there are plenty who are not amused. Recently, pageant mother Lindsey Jackson was taken to court by her estranged husband, convicted felon Bill Verst, who accuses his wife of sexually exploiting their six-year-old daughter after she appeared on the show dressed as Dolly Parton, complete with a padded bra and underwear.
But the exploitative nature doesn’t apply to just the kids. The show also heavily features the mothers of the dolled-up toddlers, most of whom are unattractive and uneducated with almost unintelligible southern accents. It’s this aspect of the program that made Here Comes Honey Boo Boo possible. Week after horrifying week, audiences laugh and leer at Alana’s rural Georgia family as they cook roadkill, deal with 15-year-old Chickadee’s pregnancy, and fulfill every backwoods stereotype you can possibly think of. The network even condescendingly subtitles much of their dialogue, as if the viewer is watching a documentary on the rituals of some foreign, unassimilated tribe speaking an indigenous dialect.
The saddest part of Here Comes Honey Boo Boo, though, is that few are as shocked or disgusted by its existence as they should be. That’s because TLC has been working its way to this level for a long time, broadcasting freak shows for the entertainment of its “normal” viewers. There’s My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding and its cousin, My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding, which display a culture where teenagers get married in unbelievably gaudy ceremonies and everyone wears crop tops and booty shorts on a daily basis. Then there was The Virgin Diaries, where a couple shared their first kiss at the altar in a display that was nothing short of revolting (and begged the question: were all of our first kisses that awful?).
As much as TLC’s programming might give us the moral heebie-jeebies, it isn’t difficult to figure out why the network’s executives keep the crap coming. These programs are remarkably cheap to produce—how much do you think the Honey Boo Boo clan demands per episode? Rarely do the station’s shows reach the mega-freakshow success of, say, Jersey Shore, and so it never needs to worry about paying big salaries per episode. If just a small section of the population finds the antics entertaining, then the show will easily turn a profit and continue to stay on the air.
But despite the torrential amounts of offensive material that TLC broadcasts, perhaps the oddest part of the network is that it isn’t entirely homogenous. Shows like Cake Boss, the Jersey rip-off of Food Network’s Ace of Cakes starring the lovable Buddy Valastro, and What Not to Wear, where the audience cringes at a woman’s horrible style but then roots for her to transform into a glamazon, are mildly entertaining and wholly innocuous, and have met large success. Unfortunately, despite the number of TV-show progeny that Say Yes to the Dress has spawned, TLC’s execs won’t let that carry the network—unless the next spinoff features child brides.
Send your Hoarding: Buried Alive audition tapes to lfinnegan@georgetownvoice.com
just saw this on Slate!! http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2012/08/here_comes_honey_boo_boo_and_the_history_of_the_hillbilly_in_america_.html