Daytime Talk Shows

My Issue with Daytime Talk Shows.
I like daytime talk-shows purely for the entertainment value that they provide so that I’m not reduced to watching overdone soap operas with recycled actors. That’s another story. With daytime talk shows, however, I get all the juicy celebrity gossip I need plus fifteen different recipes that can be made ahead of time that feed a family of five. But, wait. The rest of my family of five lives in another state. Can I still make these recipes? What about the family-fun arts and crafts specifically designed to get your kids ready for Halloween? I don’t have any kids, but can I still make the masks out of Popsicle sticks?

I’ve begun to recognize that the segments in these shows are becoming more and more oriented towards women with families who watch these programs. My latest talk-show craze, Rachael Ray, has, for the past two days, had on actresses with at least two kids apiece. The question inevitably comes up “How do you manage to have time for your family?” or the comment “And at the end of the day you go home to your family and kids.” What? Where is the juicy gossip that feeds my superficial need, Rachael? I realize that Rachael is a delight amongst many housewives and moms thanks to her 30-minute meals, but why is it necessary to always have a guest on the show who proudly wears her “mom hat?” I can remember growing up, before I started school, and watching daytime talk-shows with my mother, a stay-at-home mom. The shows we watched, like Rosie O’Donnell, Christopher Lowell, and Access Hollywood all contained what is now referred to as “mindless drivel,” were specifically targeted at viewers who weren’t necessarily family-motivated, and I loved it. Now the same type of shows are focused on keeping the family together and they seem to be forgetting that a large part of their demographic are single, unattached women, like myself. I don’t have a family, and I don’t often cook for five people, so how about focusing more on women like that, talk-shows?

Once concession, though. There was a show on, years ago, called “The Modern Girl’s Guide to Life.” It featured five women, three of whom were single and without families, and consisted of all kinds of information that a modern girl (read: single, unattached) should know in order to survive. This was a great show, and in my early to mid-teens I soaked up all kinds of information from that program, which has fortunately carried through to my early adult life. My next question is this, then: where are those kinds of programs now? I’ve already said that Rachael Ray has “fallen by the wayside” and targets her shows to the demographic of moms and housewives, but I’ve noticed that “The View” has gotten worse about it. (“The View” has always been a beef of mine, mostly because a few of the hosts are very close-minded, and somehow direct every conversation into politics.) Now one particular host, Elizabeth Hasselbeck, has gone so family-crazy it seems that she’s completely forgotten about the fact that some of her co-hosts are still not married or with kids. Hasselbeck disregards the single women in the audience and appears to me totally cloistered in her new role as mother, alienating all those whom she used to regard as equals. She’s not the only host to do this. Hosts who also happen to be moms cater their material to moms and families, as if what they’re presenting at 10:00am, be it ways to de-stress kids or money management, will be remembered at 3pm when the kids come home. All I’m asking for is just a little more attention to the single women out in daytime tv land. Remember, moms: you were once single, too.

Cheers,
Patsy