So far, the defining moment in 21st-century trash TV may be the banishment of Glitzy the pig.
For those unaware, Glitzy was Honey Boo Boo's pet. Honey Boo Boo is the star of Here Comes Honey Boo Boo, the new reality-TV show about a hillbilly family in the American South.
No doubt the dividing line between the middle and lower classes is the practice of owning pigs as indoor pets. Folk with a Prius in the driveway just say no when little Emily asks: "Mommy, can I have a pet pig?" Not so for the Thompson family of McIntyre, Georgia, which bought a porker for their six-year-old daughter Honey Boo Boo, a less-than-successful beautypageant contestant.
Glitzy roamed the Thompson household breaking wind and household objects, then taking piggy snoozes in a children's playpen. Sadly, none of the family members - including Chickadee, Chubbs, Pumpkin or the dimwitted father figure, Sugar Bear - would clean up after Glitzy's escapades. That fell to the matriarch, Mama, who sensibly decided Glitzy must vamoose.
Glitzy's leave-taking is depicted as a heart-wrenching event, the result of an agonizing decision on par with the dilemma facing Meryl Streep's character in Sophie's Choice.
"We should keep Glitzy," laments Honey Boo Boo, "because he's good."
There is something genuinely appealing about this statement. Life is so complicated, yet if you're a child (or a member of America's Tea Party) almost everything can be reduced to being "good" or "bad." It is soothing and comforting.
Honey Boo Boo's declaration is followed by a thisis-your-life-Glitzy sequence. Highlights: the squealing piglet wears a beauty-pageant crown (no doubt commemorating a third runnerup victory for Honey Boo Boo) and unceremoniously flatulates in the direction of Ms. Boo Boo, to the delight of chortling Mama.
This, in my opinion, is terrific TV. I confess to enjoying watching Here Comes Honey Boo Boo whenever possible. (Take that, high-minded types who proclaim they never watch TV because they are too busy with yoga and soulhealing nature hikes.)
Here Comes Honey Boo Boo is proving popular. But why do we watch? In an article for Slate.com, Michelle Dean nails it: "The hillbilly figure allows middle-class white people to offload the venality and sin of the nation onto some other constituency, people who live somewhere - anywhere - else. The hillbilly's backwardness highlights the progress more upstanding Americans [and Canadians] in the cities or the suburbs have made."
In other words, we watch Honey Boo Boo because it makes us feel superior, thus imbuing us with an exhilarating sense of well-being. No doubt similar to that obtained by chugging an entire litre of Mountain Dew.
Many reality shows serve a similar function. Hoarders makes us feel good because, by comparison, our homes are tidy. Intervention makes us feel good because we don't lurch about sticking needles into our arms. And Dance Moms makes us feel good because we are not wild-eyed mothers getting into screaming matches with a shrieking harridan (a.k.a. dance teacher Abby Lee Miller).
I suspect trashy reality TV has replaced a certain level of face-to-face human discourse. In the days of yore, peasants chin-wagged at the village market or across the fence. They'd gossip about Yorba beating his wife, or Olga guzzling too much potato wine. Nowadays, fiddling with iPhones and Facebook replaces that. We mostly communicate electronically, but it lacks that key visual element provided by oldfashioned gestures and facial expressions.
Reality TV is, of course, visual. We see the stuff of gossip first hand, or so it seems. We can actually watch Honey Boo Boo do belly-flops into a mud pool, or watch Sugar Bear's description of grinding up roadkill for meat patties.
The appeal of Honey Boo Boo is not only about making us feel superior. I note the teenaged girls in Honey Boo Boo are cheerfully unapologetic about gobbling cheese puffs despite being overweight. And Mama is unafraid to waggle her magnificent flesh beard as she defends feeding Honey Boo Boo "go-go juice" before pageants (a mixture of Mountain Dew and Red Bull).
It's all sort of, well - refreshing. Good for them. You go, Honey Boo Boo. You too, Mama, Chickadee, Chubbs, Pumpkin and even - yes indeed - Sugar Bear.
