Pay me, and I will do my grieving in public?

We recently commented on Whitney Houston's untimely demise and how different the private and public images of celebrities often are, even when that private life is sticking out like a sore thumb in their public life. In a certain fashion, it now comes as no surprise at all to learn that private grief is to become fodder for what will no doubt be the next generation of reality TV shows: mourning the loss of a family member who was famous. It's therefore probably no shock either to hear that my reference to Whitney is not a random one, because, yes, Lifetime has announced it will run "The Houston Family Chronicles". It's an in-your-face study of a grieving family, barely three months after the superstar's sad passing, and starring her very own teenage daughter, Bobbie Kristina, center stage. A girl who by some accounts has already commenced her own struggle with addictive substances, and who now wants to be thrust into the bright lights and intense scrutiny that many blame for her mother's self-destructiveness. This simply sounds crazy. 

We think it has gone too far already, but perhaps the only good thing about this being scheduled is that if we are very lucky, it might be the first sign that reality TV has run its course and is on its own last legs, ready for its own deathbed. Once we get to death as a reality TV concept, well, where do we go next? The afterlife?! We now have people who were total non-celebrities using a superstar's death for profit and promotion of themselves as somebody worthy of even fifteen minutes of media attention? The mere idea is so ridiculous as to be laughable: anyone who is truly grieving does not want a camera stuck in their home and in their face, 24/7. It is probably the last thing that "normal" people would find acceptable.

One can only hope and pray that after the inevitable initial curiosity of the public for the first two or three episodes, interest will wane and the show will be cancelled. Thus ending any network's wild dreams that death might just be the future of the reality TV genre. What else can we say? There's no future in death!  EU