Apparently the TV show is also going on hiatus until early August. There had been plans to churn out 40 (forty!) shows this "season." I'm old enough to remember when TV shows had 26 shows a season, ran all 26, then ran them as reruns until the next September rolled around. But J&K+8$$$$$$$$ had just finished up their season in early April and started the next "season" in late May. They've been on TV since 2007 and they have had five such "seasons," each with an increasing number of episodes. That wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that J&K are getting $50K to $75K per episode, no?
Note I said "J&K." There's no evidence that the children upon whose backs this TV show are most firmly placed have any say in where the money that they've earned for their parents goes. Granted, they are rather young, but if they lived in a more child actor-friendly state, like California, J&K would have to set some of the money aside. However, in Pennsylvania, apparently J&K can turn their kids into tiny TV slaves, the 21st century version of the Dionne Quintuplets. (Quintland was Canada's largest attraction during the Great Depression, where approximately 3 million people went to see the five Dionne girls in their natural environment. Yes, they were an attraction, rather like Niagara Falls. Now 10.6 million people tune in on an evening to see J&K announce their divorce.)
Since I make a point of NOT watching this trainwreck, if only because I believe children should not have their childhoods used by their parents for money-making purposes, I believe that Kate Gosselin has said the show musts go on. Well, considering that sitting back and directing her kids as she collects her eight little piles of cash has been her job for the last few years, I can see that. It beats being a dialysis nurse.
But for the children, who are put on display for the sake of Jon, Kate, The Loser Channel (TLC), the paparazzi, the gossip mags and webs, as well as for the almighty ratings, well, nobody seems to really care about them. I do. A lot of other people do. I've been reading "Gosselins without Pity" and "Musings from the Moon" for several months and people are bringing these issues to the fore.
If you want to help these kids, don't watch the show. Don't buy the stuff advertised on the show. Encourage your friends to do the same. Free the kids from the unblinking eye of the television camera. We have known for nearly four decades, since PBS (!) showed the first family-based "reality" series "An American Family," that this is the case. As the late Lance Loud, one of the subjects of that series said, "Television ate my family."
Television has claimed another family as victims in front of its unblinking eye.
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