Huckleberries Online

Praying for Jon & Kate

Posted by Cindy

May 26, 2009 11:18 a.m. • 24 comments

My 78-year-old mother shared this tidbit with me. Apparently, one of her friends is an avid watcher of TLC’s Jon & Kate Plus 8. At their recent Bible Study, this 80+ lady shared a prayer request. She asked that the group remember Jon and Kate in their prayers. It seems they’re having marital difficulties. http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2009/may/25/marriage-woes-add-to-draw-of-jon-kate/

“Well,” said my mother. “Why not? They are real people.”

Just how real is reality TV?

24 comments on this post so far. Add yours!

JeanieSpokane on May 26 at 11:41 a.m.
You know - I have been thinking about this and other reality shows. We talked about this before last week or the week before. There is something really maudlin about these types of reality shows. I abhor them. They tweak my better self – I feel like I’m being forced to participate in a sinister type of voyeurism. If I were at work and my boss opted to have this particular program showing during my work time, I would claim sexual harassment - that I am being pressured to participate in something that is against my personal ethical boundaries. There are so many of these that I want to take my television set and throw it off a cliff.
JeanieSpokane on May 26 at 11:43 a.m.
Your mother is sweet. Tell her to stop watching!!!!
scootermom on May 26 at 11:55 a.m.
Some people want to be famous. If they don’t have talent, they go for “reality” TV. I find nothing interesting, or worthy of celebrity status, about a couple who has a litter of children and then pimps themselves out as some kind of special family.

Media whores. I put them in the same class as Paris Hilton.
otisgexperience on May 26 at 12:05 p.m.
Here’s an idea…

How about instead of watching some random couple on TV (that you’ll never meet), take a plate of cookies to your neighbors (that you probably have never talked to). :)

Funny how people watch “reality” TV, and then claim they “don’t have time” to hang out with real people.
spokelooneh on May 26 at 12:09 p.m.
Otis nails it.
webmonkeydc on May 26 at 12:33 p.m.
Tell your mother she’s not alone.

Although the prayer schedule featured on the link below has the Gosselin’s with 24/7 prayer coverage, there’s always more room to remember this family in the coming days as the media and others continue their campaign of gossip and hate.

http://richardtgarner.blogspot.com/2009/05/i-can-honestly-say-jon-is-my-best.html
Cindy_H on May 26 at 12:40 p.m.
Uh. Just to clarify, Mom doesn’t watch the show, it’s her 80-year-friend that asked for prayer.

Lord, I’m glad my mother doesn’t blog
poolman on May 26 at 1:00 p.m.
I’ve watched small sniglets of that show and it drives me ka-razy. I get plenty of screaming, whining, and crying with my own, I don’t need more from the TV set. Any show that has high levels of kid yelling, crying, etc. is BAD – the Nanny show is another one. Horrible!

The original reality TV show - and still the king - “The Gong Show”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUkzIx382mM
OrangeTV on May 26 at 1:32 p.m.
“When I got my first television set, I stopped caring so much about having close relationships.” - Andy Warhol

“I wish something on T.V. would trouble me. Then maybe I would watch it.” - John Waters
JeanieSpokane on May 26 at 1:59 p.m.
Just how real is reality tv? It’s not. What’s scary is watching a friend’s 11-year-old daughter watch all of them with avid attention as if it really is the real thing!
toadman on May 26 at 2:34 p.m.
Surprisingly enough, my wife and I have watched this show off and on for a few seasons, and I actually predicted this “possible divorce/separation” in season two.

Those two are a disaster…Kate is overbearing, bossy, and is fake when the cameras are rolling, and Jon is mealy mouthed, emotionally distant, and allows himself to be walked all over Kate…still, I see a lot of myself in him, sans the infidelity and the emotionally distant thing (I wear my emotions on my shoulder)…frankly, I don’t know where he found the time to have an affair, sounds like too much effort and trouble to me.

They really both need to get their sh!t together, because if they don’t, the media will eat it up like the disgusting vultures that they are, and screwing up not only their lives, but the lives of their 8 kids. What a disaster. At this point, I think their only option is to end the show, and drop out of star-dome forever. Creating the show was a probably a mistake in the first place.
Digger on May 26 at 2:46 p.m.
We tried watching this show and didn’t get through one episode. TLC’s reality shows seem to get too drama filled after awhile - this show and the one about the midgets are both boring now.

While I understand their want to highlight how a family of 8 functions, its better done through a documentary than a TV show. I, for one, couldn’t subject myself to cameras running all the time.
lew2nl on May 26 at 2:47 p.m.
I feel it’s a sad state of affairs when all that people have to do in life is to sit and watch ‘reality’ shows. Reality shows have very little to do with reality and nothing to do with stimulating viewers to create something, to encourage higher thinking, or to seeki knowledge that might be important to their lives.

Read a book or play a card game with your kids or visit your neighbors instead of watching those un-reality shows — you’ll benefit in the long run.
mike_s on May 26 at 2:56 p.m.
Probably since the first season of Survivor, the public has kind of figured out that reality shows aren’t exactly real though that one guy was good at catching fish. The Real World on MTV, on the other hand, was quite captivating in its first season.

A more important issue today might be an inquiry to how real is the Food Network’s Iron Chef competition.
MamaJD on May 26 at 3:49 p.m.
Never knew of the show until all the hoopla. Watched this weekend on & off through the Jon & Kate marathon for the first time and come away with a couple of observations:

1) She is so overbearing and immasculating with her husband, I felt I wanted to cheat on her, too.
2) Who cares about the kids? Watching Jon & his body language as Kate carries his testicles in a jar is the entertaining part of the whole show
3) It is easy to see why neither is happy.
JeanieSpokane on May 26 at 5:44 p.m.
Just wait until OctoMom starts appearing. Gack!
idawa on May 26 at 7:07 p.m.
the irony of HBO continues to entertain.
spokelooneh on May 26 at 8:31 p.m.
They’re “quiverfull” with the Lord, right? Of course they must stay together.
Liz on May 27 at 12:43 a.m.
no, that’s the Duggars. Who actually seem to be a lot more functional than this pair…
Lynne on May 27 at 11:58 a.m.
I don’t even know who any of these people are. LOL

I do admit to shedding a tear or two every once in a while when I catch an Extreme Makeover: Home Edition episode though.
JeanieSpokane on May 29 at 4:36 p.m.
Interesting article on the Gosselin family: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090529/ap_en_tv/us_tv_jon___kate_investigation_5
toadman on May 29 at 4:44 p.m.
Jeanie HA! It’s like I’m clairvoyant or something. I tole my wife last week that they probably staged the whole “he said she said” drama for the ratings anyway.. seems to have worked.

These two need to hang it up, quite the show, and just go be freakin’ parents, for a change. THAT’s the best thing they could do for their marriage, AND for their kids.

Money sucks. Money corrupts.
JeanieSpokane on May 29 at 4:55 p.m.
You and I, and a whole bunch here, are far better parents then they ever tried to be.

On the other hand, I have had moments of trying out different and unique disciplinary techniques on my children that I wouldn’t want filmed. I was thinking of putting hooks every 12 inches in the ceiling and hanging paddles from each one so whenever the boys were acting like little monkeys all I had to do was reach up from wherever I was standing… . Didn’t do it. But it “thought” good. On film, it would probably have me arrested. In the end, they turned out pretty good without me paddling them every two seconds.
MikeK on May 29 at 4:56 p.m.
I had not heard of this show until the recent blitzkreig. My wife’s name is Kathleen, and though she does not shorten her name (ever), I told her that if we include our brain-dead yellow lab we could replace them as: “Mike and Kate Plus 8” if things continue to implode for them.

She said something on the order of: “Feel free to do that with your second wife”. Here I figured we had college all paid for. Ah well, back to work.

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D.F. Oliveria is a columnist and blogger for The Spokesman-Review. Huckleberries Online was judged the best 2008 Idaho newspaper blog by the Idaho Press Club. And the best 2007 news blog in the Pacific Northwest by the Society for Professional Journalist. Print Huckleberries is a past winner of the Herb Caen Memorial Column contest by the National Association of Newspaper Columnists. The Readership Institute of Northwestern University cited this blog as a good example of online community journalism.