High School Confidential April 27, 2008

I had high expectations for the new WE-TV show called High School Confidential. I saw the commercial and i figured it would be a great show but after watching 1 hour of it, I realized it was nothing like what i thought it would be. One false move was the fact that the show originally came on at 10 at night…That’s not late but for a show that its core demographic is teens, the last show i would want to see at 10 would be High schoolconfidential.They should have made it a prime time show that came on at either 8 or 9. The second thing i did not like was how the show was made. I thought it would be a weekly episode of them coping with there life starting in grade 9 and working up to grade 12 . Instead they choose 2 or 3 people to focus in on and they talk about there struggles from grades 9-12. It becomes more of a biographical show and less of a show that has reality. not saying that this show isn’t realistic, because some of the things they talk about helps other people cope with their lives, i just figured they would show more of the high school life and less of the person talking about there high school life. Lastly my issue with this show is the lack of diversity. There is diversity amongthe family types and the social cliques but with race there is none.( they have one African American). With the exception of the show taking place in Kansas…which may play a big part….i feel that they could have been a bit more diverse then preppy vs nerd vs single parent vs traditional vs religious vs non religious. All though this show is not what i expected it to be, i feel that they did a good job with shedding light on how teenagers are thinking and coping with life in high school. It is relate-able, but they could have executed it better.

                                                                Just my opinion.

Why turn a blind eye to polygamy??? April 18, 2008

If you have been keeping up with the news, there is alot of  coverage on the polygamist ranch in Texas over 500 women and children were taken off the ranch because of a 16 year old girl who called the police saying how she had been abused and how girls as young as 14 and 15 were being forced into marriage.This caused alarm across the country because once again we are hearing abuse within the polygamist community. Almost everyone has heard about Warren Jeffs. A polygamist leader who was charged with two counts with rape as an accomplice. In February of this year he has issued a guilty plea in Arizona, due to the accusations of arranged marriages with young girls and older men.

In my opinion why does the united states allow this to happen. Now i am not saying all Polygamist are prone to rape and forced marriages but a large amount of cases prove otherwise. Polygamy would be found under religion so based on that, the government can only go but so far to intervene. Only in cases where people are getting hurt such as the Jeff Warrens case or the new ranch in Texas can the law intervene. I feel through that in a religion that break rules such as multiple marriages,underage marriages and rape, why do we allow it? Yes i understand freedom of religion, but in a religion that can be compared to a cult…why allow it? There are stories of people who have broken free of there polygamist ways and are shunned by family and friends because they no longer want to live that way of life. There are stories of incest and rape, and forced marriages. There is a story of a girl was 16 and forced to marry a 65 year old man! This is ridiculous. People wonder why they are told to hide their faces when people who are non polygamist see them. That is because they are hiding their shame, there hopelessness. Though certain polygamy compounds are old fashioned, meaning they wear the home made clothing, with the bonnets almost very similar to the Amish. On Oprah i saw a modern day polygamist  family who wore the same clothes any average American would wear. They lived in a gated community ( of course) and their children wore no bonnets and they went to school with other non polygamy children. Now i am not giving them a gold star because they live a more modern way of life but they are less old fashioned.

My last thoughts on this is that i think polygamist should not be allowed. Polygamy in every other meaning then religion is illegal so why allow it? Especially when you take into account the children who have been  abused or shunned. The people who have no way out for fear of being shunned. For people who don’t even know what else life has to offer other then living a simple polygamist life. I feel this shouldn’t be legal. So i guess just like the KKK is legal because of freedom of speech, is guess polygamy will continue to be legal because of freedom of religion….what a country we live in.

Where’s the reality in reality TV?? March 19, 2008

                                                  

what ever happened to day when you would turn the TV and when a show said reality….you would say well hey, this must be real. I miss those days but then i have to think…did these days ever exist? With all the shows out now its hard to distinguish between which ones have a script, and which ones don’t. For instance all of the vast amounts of Celebrity family shows, keeping up with the kardashians,snoop dogg father hood,runs house,hogan knows best, being bobby brown….the list goes on and on! Some shows are a little discreet with the fact that the people are either following a script while others are blatantly obvious that everyone in the house has voluntarily taken acting classes just for their show to look “authentic”. It never occurred to me that an authentic family sits around in high fashion jeans with heels and full hair and makeup done as they sat and watched tv( which by the way the TV convenietly happens to be on a channel that their reality show is on). Reality TV is really becoming ridiculous. Now the same goes with the dating reality shows like flavor of love, i love new york and the bachelor. All these shows couldn’t be more fake. They pick the people that make good TV, then one by one picking off the girls or guys that are obviously not liked by the picker, then the one that everyone knew from the beginning was going to win, wins  the show. It is so predictable but yet i cant look away from the TV. What draws us in to such nonsense, that fact that we think its real or the fact that is so ridiculous we know its not real but we like to believe it is? This is a question i love to ask myself. But since there isn’t anything else on TV I guess I’m stuck watching Reality TV