Do guests go on, do their strip show, and walk off into the sunlight? Some apparently do. According to published research, few will admit to being devastated by an appearance. Unless it becomes the first round in a lawsuit. Montel Williams encountered that surprise after he ambushed (yet) another reluctant guest with the revelation that her boyfriend had been sleeping with her sister. She subsequently sued the show for pain and suffering.
I was contacted by her attorney to review a tape of that show. I was asked to judge whether the woman did indeed seem caught off guard and traumatized by her sister's betrayal. I was also asked to prepare for possible expert testimony regarding such matters as springing cruel surprises on guests. The woman later collected an undisclosed sum in an out-of-court settlement.
There are less extreme instances, of course. But even then, most guests will simply say it was an experience, it was somewhat disappointing, or that they had to do it to help correct a terrible social prejudice--even if it was a wretched forum in which to do it. Such benign public admissions may be misleading.
After one Sally focusing on "women with bad reputations," I uncomfortably shared an airport limo with one of the guests. She had just been shredded by the audience and the host. Nor did my on-air comments validate her self-abusive lifestyle. She insisted the experience was wonderful. "I was on Sally," she gushed. Denial insulates one from regret and humiliation.
Denial insulates, that is, unless your parents saw you on Geraldo and heard--for the first time--that your husband is the man who raped you on your second date. Then things don't go so well. Or unless your son saw you on Sally and learned that you habitually go to neighboring towns on the weekends, end up in bars doing stripteases, and go home with strangers. Guests quickly learn that they paid a big price for their brief stab at celebrity.
I have unsettling concerns about the people who volunteer as guests on talk shows. You might argue that if guests want to go on, let them. If they get burned, that's the price their choice exacted. No one held a gun to their heads.
True. But it is equally true that people don't always have the sophistication to make the right choices or grasp the consequences of their decisions. I would argue that until people fully understand the risks of parading their life-flaws for a few moments of cheap celebrity, until they understand that a talk show exerts an intoxicating pull on self-divulgence they can't grasp sitting at home wishing for a chance to get on Geraldo, then they are far less responsible for the degrading spectacle than are the savvy producers of the talk shows.
Circus freak shows are no longer the cruel attraction they once were. As a society we have become more sensitive to the feelings of "freaks" and to the dehumanizing stigma the term implies. We have also come to roundly condemn the promoters who exploited freaks for profit. Perhaps guests on these televised freak shows should be accorded the same compassion and the shows's producers the same condemnation. If I had understood this earlier in my talk show career, I would have dropped it sooner.
Will television talk shows run their course? Will producers be brought to their senses and pull back from the class warfare of the haves exploiting the have not exhibitionists for the amusement of voyeuristic audiences? Not until shame and privacy reassert themselves in the pantheon of social values. The "I am victim, hear me whine" chorus has a seemingly inexhaustible supply of chanters to parade across television screens and inspire fascination in viewers.
In time, I learned that I could exercise more control over what I said instead of obligingly feeding the beast. But controlling my presentation was just not enough. My presence still legitimized the circus. In the end, there was no way I could further delude myself into believing I was serving any informative function for audiences or guests. The forces at work are simply too powerful. The talk show circus will no doubt continue, but with one less clown.
PHOTO (COLOR): Stephen DeSilva and Phil Donahue
PHOTO (COLOR): Guests in talk shows
PHOTO (COLOR): Sally Jessy Raphael with a guest
PHOTOS (COLOR): Guests in Geraldo
PHOTOGRAPHY BY ADRIAN DELUCCA
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