Don’t trash talk A&E’s trash TV series

Here’s the headline: “A&E stoops in ‘Growing Up Gotti’ ” Stoops? To make a reality show out of following the daughter of a former Mafia don, the late John Gotti , is no doubt cheap and vulgar. And it makes it that much worse that the network broadcasting the series is an abbreviation for “arts and entertainment.” But let’s not get too judgmental here.

No matter whether it’s right, companies such as A&E are in competition for an audience. And the viewing audience in this country has shown a fondness for watching even the most ridiculous kind of “reality” situation, whether it be people eating maggots , scantily clad people competing so that they won’t be nixed by a “tribal council,” a weighty celebrity talking as if she were 5 years old, children gauging the qualities of women vying to marry their fathers, an obviously drug-addled rock star trying to build a fire on the California beach … it goes on and on.

So who can blame A&E for featuring life with a tough-talking - uh, statuesque, yeah, that’s the word – blond with a link, however tangential, to the mob? Those with access to HBO watch “The Sopranos,” don’t they? In the overall panorama called reality television, I’d just as soon watch Victoria Gotti as anyone. At least she should be entertaining, which last time I looked was the second half of the channel’s title promise.