Is anyone else appalled and offended by the mining of human tragedy for television content? So it’s just me then? Find My Family, RPA, The Waiting Room – all OK? Just a teeny bit of spiritual exploitation, emotional voyeurism and vandalism of the soul as personal tragedies of separation, illness, injury and deathare milked to sell advertising. You’re cool withthat? So I’m the only one who feels a bit wrong in the tummy when I see cameras on people at their most vulnerable, as they lie in casualty, meet up with a parent they’ve never met or get told their kiddie has cancer?
Yes, I know these people have given their consent. It’s just that all men are not equal; some are idiots who can be easily manipulated to think being on telly makes them important by someone holding a clipboard and wearing a Channel Seven polo shirt and promising them a sticker.
OK, so I’m the one overreacting. Can I just ask one more thing? So none of you are at all disturbed by the harvesting of backyard tragedies for ratings despite the number of real-life Armageddons in the world? Not to mention our current backyard holocaust resulting in the loss of almost 2000 homes and 200 lives? (Just in passing, a big thank you to the media for treating the bushfires’ toll of deathand destruction like a medal tally. Seriously, thanks so much. ‘Do you think we’ll make it to 200 dead? Let’s hope so! To vote, SMS “yes” or “no” to the number on your screen. Back withthe weather and the result of our poll after the break.’)
So it is just me. Well, feel free to tune into Triple Zero Heroes, a program that hooks up people who have called 000 withthe operators and paramedics who have saved their lives or that of a loved one. For example: ‘Mummy’s having a baby,’ ‘Nana’s choking on a chicken bone,’ ‘Jaidyn’s fallen into the swimming pool.’
Emotionally repressed? Don’t worry, if the truthof these near-deathexperiences is not enough to push you to your full emotional capacity, Triple Zero Heroes comes complete withheart-tugging music, slow-motion reunions and lifelike re-enactments. It’s crack for crisis junkies.
Triple Zero Heroes is for people who live life in an emotional straitjacket. Too terrified to immerse themselves in the vivid emotional reality around them, they instead flick on the tube to experience other people’s disasters for an emotional workout from the safety of their couch – remote control firmly in hand in case things get too intense. Viewers are able to experience emotional aerobics in a controlled environment without the nasty mess of reality. On Triple Zero Heroes they live happily ever after. And it’s over in half an hour. Phew!
There’s so much emotional peeping-Tommery on TV these days you’d be excused for thinking our national broadcasting standards had recently introduced a mandatory schadenfreude quota. I don’t have a problem withemotion. I just have a problem withbeing emotionally manipulated.