We have become the society of the spectacle. The car wreck. The plane crash. People who aren’t sated unless we see another less fortunate. We watch Cops not merely to chuckle at what we deem as being low lifes (although one could make the argument that we are no higher—socioeconomic status notwithstanding—than they, and perhaps even lower on the scale: we’re watching; they’re doing) but because we want to see them get slammed around. Wrestling with authenticity and a badge. We want to see when animals attack because they are ripping something to shreds. Feel the viscera. We watch the makeover programs not because we’re interested in the ostensible attractive individual that appears at the end, but because of the unattractive person at the start who must undergo what are evidently painful procedures. We don’t want to know these people. We simply want to watch. Heretofore the master at doing this sort of thing on television was Chuck Barris, not only permitting us to see the object of derision in the form of the “contestants” on The Gong Show—what would you win beyond heightened humiliation?—but also the painful agony of those who appeared on The Newlywed Game when seemingly obvious answers weren’t proffered: It became clear that those who made the mistakes would have either a truncated marriage or a lifetime of underlying misery. Watch the Wheel of Fortune spin for the shitheels. Watch them slip and end up with a foot in their mouth. We’re protected.

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