With today being All Hallow's Eve, people tend to get a little crazy. Which is fine, everyone needs to blow off some steam and deserves to have a little fun in costume once in a while. As I've said before I'm all for girls putting on as little as legally possible and running around in public.
However, without even leaving my apartment last night, the insanity found it's way in. My next door neighbors went out to a party and came back to continue the festivities at their place around 1am. Which was fine they were obviously highly inebriated at that point and made a serious amount of noise coming in. That was fine too, I wasn't in bed yet and had just finished a movie. By the time I did head to bed and get ready the festivities next door had quickly erupted into the stairwell. One of the patrons felt it necessary to take his girlfriend into stairwell to yell at her and berate her. As if that somehow meant that the people inside the apartment could no longer hear him yelling. At that point I'm fairly certain half the county could hear him. He continued escalating until I couldn't stand it anymore. I got dressed and decided to intervene. This girl had obviously done nothing wrong, but was being made to feel that way with every word that came out of his mouth. She was also being made to do so while in costume. Let's just say parts of it resembled a firefighter, kinda. "You're a stupid b****." "I hate you and never really loved you anyway." "Why don't you listen to me?" "Do you see what YOU are causing?" Since obviously none of it was his fault. I don't know what started the argument. But I went out to put a stop to it. After I came out, in typical victim fashion she defended him, and how it wasn't his fault. I told her how she didn't deserve to be treated like that, and how he wasn't worth it, but she stood there and defended him. Then got chastised for it in the process by him.
The behavior on the guys part was obviously irreprehensible. There was no excuse for it, not justifying it, but there she was walking off and defending him anyway. Finally she left him and he started to leave. Not a few minutes later she was back down in what was an attempt to regain some dignity and tell him off. However, this quickly backfired on her, as her girlfriends in the party offered no physical or moral support, and she decided to confront the guy in front of his 3 buddies, thus he had to macho it up further to save face. He regained the upper hand the way those arguments always seem to go, and eventually verbally bullied her into the car. Where it was apparent she didn't want to be, but felt she had no other recourse.
This is a situation that happens far to often and as a guy I apologize on behalf of my gender to those who have to be the victims of it. No one should have to be treated like that. Now or ever. It's horrible that this kind of things happens, and like this incident far to often goes completely unreported. Even if that girl does get the courage to end things with him at some point. The scars of last night will echo long after he's gone. Those are the things we all carry around, and some other guy is going to have to deal with that pain he inflicted. Hopefully her choice in guys improves, but I have a feeling that unfortunately there's more of that same guy in the future.
To wrap this portion of the program up all I can do is hope for a few things. 1) That girl realizes sooner rather than later, that he's not worth it. 2) That her friends see that she needs help, support, and get it for her. 3) That somehow someway this plea finds a way to reach her or them. 4) That women who do read this don't allow a guy to do that to you. 5) If it does happen, say something, to someone. The help is there, you're not wrong and you have nothing to be ashamed of. He does. So help yourselves and help stop that insanity from happening.
Onto other things that seem to fit the headline. Last night I read this article. http://www.popeater.com/2010/10/28/how-much-do-teen-mom-stars-make/?ncid=webmail
It hits on a topic I had discussed with a few people last week. Dr. Drew Pinsky, of LoveLine fame, started this show to illustrate a problem that this country has. One that far to often gets ignored or glossed over. Teenage pregnancy. Obviously it's a "Reality" show, aired through his long term partnership with the people at no longer Music TeleVision. For those of you who haven't seen it, it's called "16 and Pregnant." From the pieces of it I've seen it for the most part does the job it was set out to do. Shows the perils and life changes these girls go through because they got pregnant before they graduated high school. Usually by guys with no education, no way to support them or the child. The over all message is definitely "Don't let this happen to you."
However, that message is getting blurred by the "celebritization" and exploitation of these girls. Not only are they paid $60,000 a year to do the show, but on top of that there's the money they get by allowing their faces to be plastered all over the supermarket tabloids in the process. $60,000. That's more than most teachers, as much as Police Officers, and Firefighters get for jobs that actually contribute to society. Are our priorities that far off? Have they done ANYTHING to deserve that other than get pregnant and fail to graduate High School? Should we REALLY be rewarding this behavior? Maybe it's just me and my cynicism. But some girl somewhere is going to see this and think that these girls getting pregnant is a good thing. She's going to think that she can be next, that it's her ticket to fortune and fame.
Granted it may be a girl who was already a fairly high risk for this situation to happen already. But it certainly adds encouragement where it's not needed. I don't know how many minds this show it changing. I would hope that good parenting can convince kids that it's not something they should be doing. I'm sure in most cases it does. However, I'm also more and more convinced that good parents are an endangered species. They're becoming as rare as long term successful marriages.
My concern is for the girls who get the added kick they needed to want to get pregnant before getting a High School diploma. My concern is for the girls who are in the middle, who maybe wouldn't have had sex or gotten pregnant before, but now see this and the money they get for doing so, and think "Maybe this isn't so bad after all." Television and shows like this carry a profound impact. If you don't believe me take a walk out tonight and count the number of "Snooki", "The Situation." and "Lady Gaga" costumes. Sure most of them are going to be in jest, but the actions they have work their way into society when we're not paying attention. So I ask that parents talk to their kids about these things. Turn the tube off, take away their cell phones, shut down their laptops, and have a conversation. It just may be the thing that changes their life, because as large an impact as TV has, it's can be overcome by the parent. If they're not to busy to do so.
This show and every other "Reality" show like it have become a plague. They've taken over the airwaves until we're hard pressed to find anything else on. Personally I refer to them as "Television for the illiterate." Often depicting the worst in people and society has to offer. They make people feel better about themselves who watch it. My question is, if we feel so bad about ourselves that we NEED these shows around to make us feel better about our lives, isn't there a bigger issue? Television networks air these things because they're dirt cheap to make and the ratings for them are through the roof. Meaning they can jack up what they charge the advertisers to show commercials during the show, and increase their profit margin in the process. Should we really be helping TV execs who already make 10's to 100's of MILLIONS pad their bottom line? We should demand better. If we're going to watch it, we should have standards and demand it actually has some kind of content. Not just gluttonous voyeurism to boost our own egos. So stop the insanity, and read a book.
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