Wednesday, October 05, 2005\r\nSame ol\' TV, same ol\' sob story \r\n\r\nWhat happens when you find a needy person or family, tell their story in a way that wrings the emotion out of it, make sure the protagonists cry on camera, promote yourself by helping them, and provide lots of plugs for the sponsors providing the goods and services?\r\n\r\nYou\'ve got yourself a Sob Story! And in the age of \"reality\" TV, that could mean big ratings.\r\n\r\nIn an excellent online column today, \"Return of the Sob Story,\" Roy Peter Clark of the Poynter Institute explores the roots of TV\'s misery-for-profit, comparing NBC\'s exploitation of hurricane victims to the archetypal (perhaps we could coin a new phrase: \"ache-typal\") sob show, \"Queen for a Day.\"\r\n This marvelous personal history of the show points out that the winners were never chosen if they needed money for medical help or a trip to be united with a love one. They only made the cut if their needs could be satisfied by an appliance, in particular, one manufactured by the show’s sponsor. ...\r\nSentimentality is to women, what pornography is to men. Just as porn is designed to arouse a physical response in men, so the sob story is designed to create an emotional catharsis for women. TV Guide once exposed the manipulation by designating Queen for a Day the \"No. 1 mesmerizer of middle-aged females and most relentless dispenser of free washing machines.\"\r\n\r\nYep, Oprah does it. While You Were Out does it. Three Wishes does it. Today, we see the Today Show in full Queen redux: Surprising down-and-out families with new homes, introducing them to celebrities and reuniting them with loved ones.\r\n\r\nI compare this historic peculiarity of television with the overwrought begging and whining of at least one radio talk show host here in Southeast Texas for the attention of any politician who\'ll cast his eye our way, and for the \"national media\" to make us a story again. Heck, we\'ve been visited by President Bush, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, our two Texas senators, a raft of Cabinet secretaries, and our entire legislative delegation. How does a region that spends its untrammeled time complaining about the uselessness of government now see government as its only hope? How does the attention of national media -- generally reviled \'round here in sunnier times -- make it better?\r\n\r\nEvery day, I see people helping people here. Somebody loans a spare refrigerator, a phone line or a chainsaw. Somebody else makes a call and finds a lost relative. A motorist gives a lift to a single mother without a car. A friend checks on a house for nervous evacuees, unable to get home to see for themselves. A teenage boy secures a tarp over holes in an old woman\'s damaged roof. A neighbor clears fallen debris from his neighborhood\'s yards and streets with his own front-end loader ... without being asked.\r\n\r\nYes, FEMA and Red Cross aid is needed at some levels. Government provides a necessary service in a ravaged landscape. Many things must be done we cannot do for ourselves ... but there\'s much in our power to fix ourselves.\r\n\r\nThe more self-sufficient you are, the less of a victim you will be. We\'ve seen incredible resilience -- and less whining -- in rural areas of Southeast Texas, where people tend to be able to take care of their basic needs without excessive infrastructure; they have generators, guns, water wells, gardens, well-stocked pantries, heavy equipment, even gas-storage tanks. They also have a sturdier sense of community. \"Need\" is greater in urban areas, where there\'s more dependence on the amorphous \"Them\" -- utilities, grocery stores, gas stations, cops ... government. At times like this, urbanites are more likely to need life-sustaining handouts than self-sufficient ruralites.\r\n\r\nOne sure sign of victimhood is surrendering everything, just as one sure sign of community is helping ourselves. Self-sufficiency just won\'t pluck the same profitable heartstrings, so it\'s less of a TV event. Most of us are doing what we can for everybody else, not waiting for FEMA, the Red Cross, the White House or the Today Show to make us whole again.\r\n\r\nBlog posting, underthenews.blogspot.com/