I saw something on TV while I was at my mom’s house I wanted to … well … rant about. It was a commercial for Miss USA or Miss America, I forget which one. The beginning of the commercial was clips of previous contestants falling on their asses and horribly answering questions under pressure … embarrassing moments for contestants and the kinds of things they would probably like to forget. I don’t even know what the voice-over was saying, because at the moment I realized it was a commercial for one of the big pageants, my outrage meter went off.

Isn’t a beauty pageant, and that’s what they are whether you still want to call them that or not, isn’t it about showing off a bunch of beautiful, talented, and intelligent women and picking the one to be crowned the best of them all? I know the answer to that question. I was involved with pageants for a very long time, both as a contestant and later behind the scenes. The answer is that yes, pageants are competitions to pick the one that is the best, by whatever criteria that pageant is using. Generally, the winner is considered to be the most talented, personable, intelligent, and … yes … beautiful among the choices on stage. So, why the hell would a pageant advertise itself by showing the most embarrassing moments of their previous contestants competition?

Lowest common denominator entertainment. People have allowed themselves to be convinced that watching real people in embarrassing moments — or dangerous, humiliating, deadly ones — is entertainment, because it allows everyone to feel better about themselves. “Well, at least I’ve never (fill in the blank).” It completely disgusts me. There is entirely too much of this kind of crap on TV. We are becoming the freaking damned Romans with our entertainment choices.

When one of the big American beauty pageants is trying to lure viewers to watch their program by advertising negatives instead of positives in their contestants, because that’s the sort of commercial that might get people to tune in that night, I have to think we might as well just give up on civil society as we know it. Our humanity is quickly evaporating. It’s bad enough the majority of television programs are geared to be founts of amusing moments of utter horror or sheer embarrassment for the couch-potato viewers, but when something that is supposed to be an event showing off well-rounded and lovely women tries (or has) to lure those viewers to watch the program for the chance to see one of those girls having a bad moment, it’s really completely disgusting.

I could go on, but I feel like crap, and I need to wake Lin up enough to move him to the bed, and he feels like crap too. I just had to get that off my chest. I reserve the right to rant about it some more when I feel better and am not falling asleep at the keyboard. :yawn:

Have you ever fallen asleep in the middle of typing a sentence?