Mental Illness Is Not a Reality for TV and We Need to Stop The Madness
Because it’s crazy
I hate Oprah for introducing us to Dr. Phil. What a creep. Even his moniker reeks of bad taste and putrid ignorance for those that need to be shielded from the blatant glares of bored losers who are too lazy to change the channel. And so they stay glued to the disgusting parade of sub-humans opening up to a well-preserved Frankenstein — who doesn’t give two fucks about their well-being or diced future.
Another major loser with a badge of dishonor is Dr. Drew Pinsky — the VH1 specialist in resident who had a show — Rehab with Dr. Drew that was once Celebrity Rehab With Dr. Drew — until a celebrity actually died after not receiving the help he desperately needed. Then the switch was initiated. I can’t decide which of the two I hate the most — but it really doesn’t matter because they both deserve to have their licenses revoked for the simple fact that they have broken every rule in the book of decorum and logic.
I’m no doctor and I certainly haven’t earned the right to have a PhD behind my name — but what I do know is that mental illness is not a condition that should be on display for roving minds to access in their almost dilapidated couches while they stuff their throats with shrouds of Doritos.
I have been struggling lately so, please bear with me.
I am stuck in a time warp that is kicking my ass daily. I obsessively watch past episodes of Six Feet Under while achingly wishing that I were six feet under. Or maybe I am being nostalgically dramatic — as my younger self seduces me into believing that if I feel exactly the same desperation that I felt back in 2001 — then maybe it’s time to call it quits.
The measurement of my grief can be accurately summed up in a requiem that begins in 1982 — and this truth may end up killing me after all — but I won’t need an audience or a kook with a badge to politely tell me so.
And neither does Shelley Duvall — an actress, who starred in The Shining with Jack Nicholson and also Popeye with Robin Williams.
Duvall — who has been in isolation, is now back in the limelight after tragically agreeing to appear on Dr. Phil’s circus show to divulge her deepest thoughts and erratic disposition for the purpose of ratings and a paycheck that will never compensate for the erosion of her soul.
Stanley Kubrick’s daughter — Vivian Kubrick is incredibly appalled that her father’s protégé was manipulated like a modern-day rag doll. Her father directed The Shining and she is reasonably in tatters over Duvall’s manhandling and wants to seek justice for the actress that her father once described as a “fantastic Wendy Torrance.”
Kubrick set up a GoFundeMe page for Duvall and appropriately blasted Dr. Phil McGraw for misusing his platform for profit and shame at the expense of a Hollywood reject that is clearly in no shape to be propped up for HD specific viewing.
But, we already know this and yet we don’t care.
The reason why I despise Oprah Winfrey so much is that she is the Queen of Daytime filth. She saw the future and grabbed it with her millions and minions.
She established the order with her formidable discoveries that were meant to breathe truth into lost souls — but really only serve as mirrored pieces that should be gathered together with care and precision. But, instead are regulated to the gawking practices that we are now accustomed to.
Mental illness is real.
Reality TV has served you well and you gobble and digest the careless fodder with gusto as you prepare the summary you will read off to co-workers the next day. Your job might be light-hearted bubble that overflows when you hit the quota for a raise or extra vacation days — but you have to know that lives are being fucked with — and this isn’t a Reality that you want to joke about with undiluted glee.
This is some straight up real shit.
What Dr. Phil manifested with his latest conquest is the symbol of a misplaced mistral with too much power and very little empathy to coerce respect and validation.
People who have vulnerable tendencies that expand into treacherous territory deserve to expand and contract in private.
Sure, there are some cases that can be stuffed into shopping carts for the highest bidder and usually in those cases — the subjects are overreacting in order to guarantee the mortgage payment that needs to suffice in order to initiate sanity.
As for me, I still suffer and always will until I decide when and how the mental pricks end. I do it alone without the sufficiency of friends and family because in my advanced age — I don’t really trust anyone and hate people for the most part. It wasn’t always this way — but, hey, life happens.
For Shelley Duvall — she was once young and prime in forecast and now she has been reduced to a relic that a wealthy TV star decided to unleash at will — so that he can continue to own land and reduce innocent and viable lives into a Petri dish of OMG and OMFG.
God doesn’t care who you fuck over — that’s why it’s so goddamn easy to do it over and over again.
But, we can’t keep reducing mental illness to a moneymaking bonanza that is naturalized by the harassment of your remote and the looseness of your tongue. People are suffering out there and it is scary and Real — and the TV that pretends to display the retina of truth is fooling your glazed gaze.
Dr. Phil and his soldiers-in-training need to be stopped and menaced out of business — because we need to stop the madness.
It’s crazy!
