I am a huge, I repeat HUGE, fan of reality television. I watch Survivor, Big Brother, The Amazing Race and even love some talk shows like Oprah and Dr. Phil. Some kinds of reality television are really troublesome though. It’s amazing what people will say on the air without a thought given to how it will effect their lives and their families lives in the future. What is particularly disturbing is the trend of doing paternity tests on talk shows like Maury Povich. It seems like that’s all he even does on his talk show anymore. I’m not sure how this qualifies as entertainment. These tests determine who the fathers of children are. Children, who have no control over what their parents are saying on recorded television for the whole world to see. How would that effect you as a teenager to know that your Mom went through ten different shows to find out who your biological father was? I think that would totally screw you up. I think that something as personal as a paternity test should be done privately, as a family matter instead of “entertainment” for the masses. There are even web sites that will send you the testing materials and then you send them back for the results so that no one who doesn’t need to know what’s going on plays a role in the testing at all. This sort of entertainment is almost reminiscent of gladiators performing for screaming crowds.
