Here Comes Honey Boo Boo

I really wish I wasn’t writing that sentence but when America hits you right in the face, it’s sobering. Y’all know how much I appreciate reality television but hold on to your hats because there is nothing quite like this on the air.

Here Comes Honey BooBoo is a train wreck much the same way that Jersey Shore is – it’s so bad and so ludicrous that you can’t take your eyes away from the screen.  From the room filled floor to ceiling with toilet paper and those orange cheese puff balls to the summer redneck games.  My head was spinning.  As my friend Becky Leavitt put it, the show is tragically amazing and just plain wrong.

The reason is that everyone was fat or morbidly obese and they were celebrating it, reveling in their obesity – even the middle child, Chubette (I did not make any of this up) was laughed at when she wanted to lose weight.  So, they all got on a scale at one point in the debut episode and Mama couldn’t register because she was so big.  Honey Boo Boo, a six year old weighed in at 70.  And Boo Boo’s older sister, Chickadee, is 17 and pregnant.  Let’s do the math together here. Mama is 32 and her eldest daughter is 17.  32 – 17 = 15.  Yay! Mama was 15 when she had her first child.  Can anyone say government assistance for these diabetics-in-training?

Why is that right? Why is that allowed? And people worry about gays being allowed to marry? Not that I want to take on that topic in this space but it worries me to see a large (no pun intended) segment of our population being so obese and so diabetic and so unhealthy and we do nothing about that.  I can’t be Nero watching Rome burn without saying anything about it.

It is so impossible to understand a word that comes out of anyone’s mouth on this show that it has subtitles – it’s like watching a foreign film only you feel dirty, not enlightened at the end of the experience.  There is even a fart in the opening credits.

All that aside, there were some classic lines: “all that vajigglejaggle is not beautemous.” That is an exact quote – remember there were subtitles so I got the spelling correct. And since the Olympics just came to a close, and not a moment too soon, I may add, because now we can practice for the Red neck Belly Flop into a pool of mud and Bobbing for Raw Pig’s Feet.  Who needs to spend years practicing and honing your craft when you can get a medal this way – Count me in!

My point is that this is where America is heading. I know I don’t live in America but rather New York City– a distinctly different experience.  But, I am out there trying to teach people how to take care of themselves; how to lead a healthy life and it is challenging enough without having a television show extolling the virtues of all that is wrong with America.

People take television seriously and the role models that television characters become to us – whether subconsciously or not. I mean look how New Jersey, or at least the most base side of New Jersey is now in the cultural zeitgeist and almost accepted.  I was at a barge/bar/restaurant on 27^th street and the Hudson River on Sunday and it was filled with guido juiceheads and their female counterparts – in Manhattan.  I think they were tourists but I was afraid.

To think that this show may elevate rednecks to that status is making my job more difficult everyday.  It’s as if we’ve given up. I know I haven’t and I won’t stop until some network gives me my own reality show! Now who would watch that? A show of hands please!!!!! #gluttony # redneck # ridiculous #shows that shouldn’t be on the air #things I find offensive

But, we can always leave it to the classiest lady on RHONJ, Melissa Gorga to get the line of the week: I am not going in that cold water. I would rather sit here in my bedazzled bathing suit and keep it sexy.  And that you do Melissa #work

Until next time…