YOU ARE NOT THE FATHER!

Earlier today, my mom forgot to turn off the TV before leaving to work. When I came into our apartment, much to my annoyance The Maury Show was on. I don’t watch much television, and least of all talk shows as they are nothing more than salacious trash--and cheap salacious trash, at that. And over the years, from flipping through channels and conversations with friends, I’ve become too familiar with Maury’s show topics, of which the bulk consist of Who’s My Baby Daddy and Cheating Husbands Put to the Test by Backstage Sexy Decoys. It’s a sad fact, for at least there’s more substance in the Is It a Man or a Woman and the Out of Control Teenage Girl Sent to Boot Camp show topics. It’s also sad because during the first few seasons of the show when the host himself wasn’t dogged by sexual harassment scandals, The Maury Show spent considerable time on serious subject matter. But I guess there was simply no fun in that. In any event, I kept the TV on as I unwound.

On this particular episode, a woman who we will conveniently call Jezebel, came on the show for the fifth time to have the fifth man tested to determine the child's paternity. Old footage was conjured to recap her past appearances on the show. Almost without fail, Jezebel always followed the same script: she was initially 100% sure the alleged man was the father, after it was revealed that he wasn’t, she went backstage and broke down crying. If Jezebel is so disgraced that this walking, unthinking penis isn’t her baby’s daddy, then why does she even show up on the show to begin with? This woman is on live television announcing to millions of people that she is a, should we say, whore!

What shocks me even more is that the audience always seems to side with Jezebel. When Jezebel cries, the camera doesn’t fail to catch their displays of sympathy; when Jezebel lashes out at her almost-certainly-not baby daddy, the audience rallies her on. This is beyond outrageous (and even laughable). Maybe Jezebel is their version of a model citizen, maybe they want their children to grow up and follow her example. Not that I have any defense of the baby daddy, either; after all, this man (and I use the term here very loosely), whose knee-jerk reaction after being exonerated is to start dancing like a buffoon, has almost always very bad taste (judging by Jezebel’s appearance) and not even the slightest presence of mind to put on a condom when consorting with some woman he just met at the club that night. As far as I’m concerned, he’s already a baby daddy multiple times over, not to mention a walking venereal disease factory.

This brings me back to the macdaddy of trash television, Jerry Springer. I always thought that his show was the trashiest, but when it was revealed in the late 90s that a lot of the show was choreographed, I realized that there was at least some method to the madness. And after all, Springer himself was the mayor of Cincinnati and pursued a more serious career in journalism. His show also spawned the career of Steve Wilkos, whose show has steered clear from the low-brow salaciousness that has defined Springer’s. All Maury Povich has left behind is trash, and more trash.

By the way, the fifth man who Jezebel so adamantly accused of being her baby daddy, turned out not to be (surprise, surprise!). She went backstage, she broke down, she cried, though this time the man in question was a little more sympathetic and not as eager to flaunt his superb dancing skills. Maybe he’s learned something. As for Jezebel, stay turned for next week’s episode when she’ll have the sixth man tested.