Daddy's Girl

So the FOX Network, purveyors of moral clarity and political certitude, have somehow managed to lower the reality-TV bar yet further, even though it's been laying on the ground almost from the get-go. Who's Your Daddy? features a young woman, adopted as an infant, interviewing eight men, one of whom is her biological father. If she guesses which man is her father, she wins $100,000; if she guesses wrong, the real biological dad gets the $100K.

This is just all kinds of wrong, obviously. Not only is it cheapening the idea of adoption, but the woman is hot. Really hot. They didn't find a guy looking for his dad, and they didn't find an average-looking -- or dare I say it, plug-ugly -- woman. No. They found someone who wouldn't look out of place in a Victoria's Secret catalog. So there's that repugnant undercurrent right there, up in your face. Might as well have her play some sort of incest Russian roulette, while we're at it. Maybe that's the sequel.

It's probably wrong to use these increasingly awful reality shows as any sort of cultural barometer, but as they've quickly become the dominant form on network TV, and TV is to a large extent a mirror of the culture at large, some conclusions practically draw themselves. The themes, at least if what I've seen of the incessant commercials for things like Fear Factor and My Big Fat Obnoxious Boss are any reliable indication, are humiliation and cruelty. Just what would you do for $50,000, or $100,000, in front of millions of people? Eat horse rectum while suspended in a tub full of maggots and mealworms? Swap wives with a stranger for a week? Let some asshole sexually harass you at a job interview? How low are you willing to go?

It's easy enough to understand the networks' motivation for these shows -- there's no writers or actors to put on the payroll, just low-rent rubes, and cameramen and (the critical link in the chain) editors. But what's the motivation for watching this stuff, and does it actually say something about our deeper cultural mores? Is it basically for people who can't handle porn or Faces Of Death, or is it more harmless, just a visual Twinkie or sack of Cheetos?

I guess we'll be finding out sooner, rather than later. Trump's show fell precipitously from its initial season. Apparently three hours of boundless ego and horrific comb-over wasn't nearly as much fun as it sounded like. The paradigm may have already played itself out, the way Law & Order clones and forensic porn shows (let's face it, CSI is just a weekly snuff film, awash in bodily fluids and goo) have played themselves out.

And with shows like Who's Your Daddy?, which seems to wink as if it knows it's awful, but really is just an awful concept wallowing in itself, we're one step closer to finding out just how low we're willing to go.