ZuZu's Petals?

Bedford Falls or Pottersville?

Sooner or later, it has to get personal.
Sooner or later it’s going to be you up there, giving it all you’ve got, and then listening to the snickers.
None of us is perfect, not even close.
Sooner or later –as the song goes, it will be our turn to cry.

That’s obvious, isn’t it? Still, it doesn’t hurt to remind yourself that you’re supposed to treat others, as you would have them treat you. It’s called the ‘Golden Rule’, though it’s looking a bit tarnished these days.
These days it’s a national sport, making fun of each other. These days, the biggest stars are the biggest fools.
Maybe part of it is the distance, the safe distance there is between us and the embarrassment. But don’t you still feel embarrassed for them: doesn’t it feel like we are watching something that should be private?
The cameras don’t just watch either, waiting for something to happen. The hosts provoke and cajole, tease and taunt. The cameras follow the embarrassed into the street, waiting, hoping, for more priceless moments.
No one is happy – and that includes you and me, until and unless the very last drop of ridicule has been wrung out of the poor, the uneducated, the naive, or the innocent.

I think back to a different day, perhaps a less sophisticated time (and I swear, before my time) when the odd or unusual among us were, at worse, characters that added flavor.
I think back to the film “It’s a Wonderful Life” in which the director, Frank Capra, showed two towns: the one that had been touched by idealism and affection was peopled with eccentric characters; the other, abandoned to the so-called market forces, wore the perpetual shadow of mean-spiritedness, and was populated by what you might generously call ghouls.
Bedford Falls was not a real place, but it was an ideal worth aspiring towards.
Pottersville was a fantasy too, but a dark fantasy, and something to be avoided at all costs.
Are we just not willing to pay that price? Or are we just so lazy that the only entertainment we can find is that which we are spoon fed by giant corporations?
Which reality do you live in today: Bedford Falls or Pottersville?
Certainly our Selectmen can’t sing, not one of them, not a note – so run the bums out on a rail?
The guys at the landfill could use a visit from the guys from Queer Eye, if you know what I mean.
The head of that youth sports organization – you know the one I’m talking about, the guy with the toupee: what a laugh. Never mind the endless hours he puts in for your kids.
The local kid passing by in his new car, with the big woofer, what a spoiled punk: you’ve never talked to him at all but somehow you know all about him.
And did you hear the voice on that, well, person: man or a woman? Your guess is as good as mine: your smirk is as sharp as a knife.

Or do you actually recognize these people: are they friends, neighbors?
Does it matter if you know them?
Is it ever fair to scrutinize friends to a degree that none of us could hold up under, if the camera were turned around?
And if we wouldn’t stand for our friends and neighbors being ridiculed for the way they looked, the way they dressed, or their lack of talent, how can we sit there and watch other people’s neighbors, and laugh at their imperfection?

My sense is that American Idol is far from American in spirit. My belief is that The Biggest Loser is the Biggest Loser. My idea is that, as difficult as it might seem, we need to turn these shows off.
They’re laughing at us – laughing all the way to the bank.
Show some pride. Or when the camera focuses in on you, you will have no one else to blame.