Save the kittens. Stop watching TMZ.

“Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die.”
Mel Brooks, The 2,000 Year Old Man (1961)

A few days ago I posted a piece about the dangers of contagious misinformation. At the end I mentioned the possibility that watching the TV show TMZ might kill kittens. I’ve received a couple of emails from people defending their right to watch TMZ, and one comment posted by fellow blogger Ivan Greene. I feel very strongly about this subject and so I’ve decided to respond publicly.

Human beings enjoy watching others suffer. This isn’t new and won’t end any time soon. Tours of dungeons were common in the Middle Ages. A few years ago, one of the Yeomen Warders (also known as Beefeaters), at the Tower of London told my group that nobility invited to tour a dungeon while torture was taking place would bring snacks and stay a while.

We no longer take pleasure in the physical suffering of people or animals. At work we learn anger management and sensitivity training. Going to therapy is so normal that we talk about it on public transportation.

These days we prefer intelligent conversation and entertainment that improves our society, right? That’s why we like snickering at photos of beautiful women in embarrassing situations like that horrifying picture of an actress at the beach with her young children. She’s wearing a less than flattering bikini that doesn’t really hold up her tata’s all that well.

Remember that movie star, who, it turns out, has cellulite on her thighs? Can you believe her husband has to look at the horror of her body fat? Thankfully someone with a telescopic lens was there to reveal the “news” to the world because I saw that bitch in a movie once, and her flat tummy made me feel bad about my body. That last line, to be clear, was sarcasm.

I get the appeal of watching celebritainment. There is an element of funny right? Ha ha she thought she was so much better than me, with her movie star life and her movie star looks, but she isn’t better than me after all because she has body fat, or an alcoholic boyfriend, or an embarrassing mother. Her tragedy is my comedy, as explained by Mel Brooks.

Remember Candid Camera? I am not opposed to laughing at people being pranked, and on that show at least, people always ended up laughing at themselves. It is good to help friends laugh at themselves.

But TMZ does not encourage viewers to laugh at themselves. Rather than creating a combination of relief (because that’s not me on the screen) and self-awareness (because I know that I have been in that same position as the person on the screen), instead TMZ encourages treating someone very poorly and laughing not so much at the person, but at how clever it is to be mean.

Recently I saw this scene as I was flipping channels: a group of TMZ “reporters,” sitting in a room filled with desks in an approximation of a news room, passing around a photo of a female celebrity. They are all wide eyed and gasping in horror at the photo that the viewer cannot see. As anticipation grows, one man says to the room (I am paraphrasing), “You are never going to believe this. These thighs belong to…” Cue ominous music and a close-up of one man expressing disgust. The famous actress with cellulite on her thighs will be revealed after the commercial.

I believe that viewing programs that are based on determining a woman’s worth as a human being entirely on a few centimeters of flesh will program your brain to see all women that way, including yourself. Every time we snicker with contempt when someone pretty and popular is revealed to have “flaws,” we destroy a part of our own humanity. Hence, we kill the kittens in our soul. And by the way, there is no such thing as a flaw, because you are perfect.

I know that a lot of you watch TMZ, Entertainment Tonight (ET), The Soup, etc. and I want to be clear that my main concern is with TMZ. ET includes some actual news about contracts, casting and box office. The Soup isn’t only about celebrities but about anyone who chooses to go on a TV show and then they poke fun at the way people behave.

The difference with TMZ is that they use stalker tactics, the same tactics used by the photographers chasing Princess Diana the night she was killed, in order to reveal private moments entirely for the purpose of making someone look bad.

I think if you are really interested in finding out about Hollywood news then you might consider reading The Hollywood Reporter.

For research purposes I watched an episode of TMZ when I decided to write this post. I cannot bear to embed the video here but if you want to see, go to the TMZ website and watch the show that aired Monday, February 1, 2010. Please do yourself a favor and skip most of the atrocities and go right to 18:45 on the video.

You’ll see a hilarious video of a very drunk or drugged, unidentified young woman being dragged across the street and thrown into the back of a car by an unidentified man. A man in the TMZ “newsroom” comments, “This is the most wasted girl I’ve ever seen on a video. She’s literally getting dragged to some guy’s car in a gas station. (ha ha ha) I’m hoping he knows her.” This comment is followed by laughter from several voices. Back to the footage of the drunk girl being dragged and another guy says, “Also known as Last Seen Footage!” Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha.

Yeah, there’s nothing funnier than women being abducted.

Watching TMZ is not a harmless guilty pleasure. Watching TMZ has consequences and one of those is the killing of kittens.