But on nights when I'm seeking something a little more edgy, a little more raw and filled with something besides crown molding and granite, I head straight for the network named after entertainment...E!. Pretty soon, I'm lost in a world of tabloids and affluent stupidity, people like the Kardashians and the Jonas Brothers, and the subsequent mocking of people like the Kardashians and the Jonas Brothers, and it fills me with a guilty sort of glee. For a little while, I get to watch the lives of crazy people unfold, experience their drama, and their humor--and for a little while, step out of my own life. And then, I get to watch other people pick these people's lives apart, find humor in some of the stupidity and turn the real lives of real people into some sort of laughing-stock. And I find it funny, even when sometimes, it's really not.
I think it's some sort of guilty pleasure we as human beings have: this need to take the focus off our own lives and hone in on the lives of someone else, someone who has, by choice or by force, thrown themselves into the spotlight. And I feel like maybe that is where pop culture came from--a need for escapism from our own day-to-day lives, by turning the lives of others into entertainment.
It's not to say that these people featured in the tabloids deserve to have their lives made into a mockery, because no one actually deserves to be made fun of. But those in the celebrity spotlight have chosen this sort of life; they've chosen to put their lives on display, by choosing to live life within the scope of a camera lens. By allowing cameras to film your every move on a reality show, or by becoming some sort of entertainer, you are opening up your every move to criticism by the public--and the public can be cruel.
This sort of mockery is different from what came out of minstrel shows and blackface. With this form of entertainment, white performers were making a mockery of a whole race of people: a race of people who did not choose this lifestyle for themselves. It's not as if African American slaves said "hey, look at me! Why don't you white folks dress up like me and paint your faces black and make fun of me all across the country!" They didn't agree to being in the public eye, or sign a contract to a reality show--they were simply living their lives, as best as they could in an oppressive, racist environment, and white men decided that making fun of them was a fantastic way to entertain themselves. And seeing the way some celebrities respond to negative, mocking tabloid articles about them today, I can only imagine how African Americans may have felt about the mockery back then.
When it comes to shows like Chelsea Lately and The Soup, buttons are pushed and boundaries are sometimes overstepped, but I don't think it is done with any sort of real malicious intent. Hosts of these shows don't ever set out to purposely hurt someone. But I feel like the motivations behind blackface minstrel shows were very different. The mockery of African Americans came directly from racism and bigotry, and were meant as hatred first and entertainment second.
The Soup will still probably be a late-night guilty indulgence, because, let's face it: some people do some really stupid, funny things. But it is important to remember that celebrities or not, these are real people, with real human emotions, and still deserve basic respect--a kind of respect that an entire race of people never got, when they were being mocked for simply being who they were.
