Perhaps it was inevitable:
and
Jon and Kate Plus 8's Kate Gosselin
are now sniping at each other through the press. Could a little friendly mud-wrestling competition be far behind?
Reality television is a strange phenomenon. It began so innocently, back in 1992 and The Real World, "seven friends picked to live in a house..." Since then, it's morphed, mutated and exploded to the modern-day equivalent of the carnival side-show, with increasingly bizarre line-ups that pit has-been D-listers against the medically over-fertile in the epic battle for our attention.So it was only a matter of time before the Octomom and Kate Gosselin felt the need to comment on each other. In February, a still scandal-free Kate commented on the then-flavor-of-the-month Octomom, saying she was concerned for the mom of fourteen's emotional health. This week Octomom replied via video that Kate was "overly emotional" and "attention-seeking." And, in the funniest case of the pot calling the kettle black ever recorded, Nadya Suleman accused Kate Gosselin of "cheating" on her appearance by getting plastic surgery. Oh, Octomom, we've seen the high school pix of you. Come on.
The only question that continues to be relevant for us, the viewers, is: what primal satisfaction do we get from turning ordinary people in weird life circumstances into insta-celebrities? We pluck them out of obscurity, build them into psedo-stars with perks and free tummy tucks, buy their books and turn out in droves to hear what they have to say, then relish tearing them to pieces and snickering while their lives implode. Why? Have we run out of movie stars? With the line between life and performance becoming increasingly fuzzier, it's bound to get weirder.
There was a time that shows like MTV's "Celebrity Deathmatch" (a clay-mation parody featuring ridiculous line-ups of celebrities slugging it out in the ring) were funny because they were so outlandishly over the top and improbable. Now, stuff like that is just called the Tuesday line-up. In order to remain relevant, reality stars need to continue to shock and awe us. Please. So we can keep from switching over to the 24-hour news channels and seeing the latest unemployment statistics.
Oh, on second thought, hold on. Maybe we will watch the news for a bit. The promo says that after all this boring current events stuff they'll be running photos of Kate Gosselin in her new bikini.
What other reality-celebrity goings on is Maria writing about? Check it out at her website.