I saw an episode of that Hoarding: Buried Alive show for the first time the other day. It reminded me of that cliche "train wreck" or "car accident" analogy where everyone has to stop and look, gawking at the unfortunate victims like a horde of drooling, empty-headed vegetables. As humans, we're naturally both repelled by it and attracted to it. It disgusts us, but at the same time, it makes us feel better about ourselves.
"Whew! Good thing we're not mangled and splattered all over the windshield of that car, huh honey? Yep. My intestines are right where they should be... in my tummy. Speaking of which, any of you kids hungry for some Wendy's tonight?"
It's a sad truth that permeates over to the realm of Hoarding: Buried Alive. While I only watched one episode, I think I got the gist of what the show is really about. It's a modern day freak show.
Sure, we can gloss it over and discuss how it's about helping people overcome their hoarding problems, but that's just a clever excuse and cover. We don't watch it because of that. We watch it because we want to see how fucked up some of those people are. We want to gawk, stare, drool, and laugh at them, look at their misfortunes and feel better about our petty lots in life. Sure, we might be living in a cramped apartment with cockroaches scuttling across the floor, eating up that hardened, buttery egg grease we were too lazy to clean up, but at least we're not those freak shows on The Learning Channel.
It's no more complex than paying your nickel at the fair to see some horribly mutated individual. The irony behind it is that this show is airing on The Learning Channel.
What are we learning, anyway? How is this show really educating us? Riddle me that, TLC!
Now, I'm no saint, but at least I can admit when I'm feeding that voyeuristic, sadistic monkey that wants to see people suffer more than I already do. Hell, even Alex DeLarge was pretty upfront about it. Why can't our television executives and viewers at home do the same?
