Last Days of a Great City

The FOX News Report

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Roving Last Days reporter Rachel Tension watched FOX News for fifteen minutes today and filed this report …

“Well, Felix, it’s looking pretty Right Wing on FOX News tonight.  The lead item on Iran was clearly written to stir up anti-Iranian sentiment.  FOX News reported that Iran had essentially dared the United Nations to impose sanctions.  ‘Prices at the pump will rise,’ taunted the Iranian Foreign Minister.  Looks like they’ve got us by the balls.

“There was a story on the ‘Day Without an Immigrant’ protests planned for May 1st.  As you know, Felix, pro-immigration activists urged immigrants and their supporters to stay home from work on May 1st to underscore the importance of immigrants to our national economy.  FOX News reporter Adam Hauser pointed out that ‘May 1st is also a Socialist-Communist holiday, and that may not be a coincidence.’  It isn’t every day you hear reporting of this caliber.

“I sat through the commercials at the break, Felix, and I noted that sponsors included Ditech Financial Services, Bayer Aspirin, a dietary fiber company, and the manufacturer of a product for head lice—giving the impression that FOX News viewers are constipated, heavily indebted neuralgics with head lice.

“Back to you, Felix …”

ANTM as a Source of Moral Wisdom

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Background: America’s Next Top Model (ANTM) is a reality television show in which 13 beautiful young women compete against one another to be crowned “America’s Next Top Model.”  Each week, one contender is eliminated.  The last model left standing (in six-inch heels, of course) wins a lucrative modeling contract.

In episode 5, the girls were joined by aging supermodel Janice Dickinson, a former ANTM judge who was thrown off the show a while back for being too harsh on the contestants.  Ms. Dickinson has an intimidating presence.  Her super-sized lips and botox-immobilized facial muscles give her a freakish, somewhat aggressive appearance.  Reporter Steve Rogers picks up the story:

That night at dinner, tempers flared when Janice tempted [ANTM contender] Gina to admit who was giving her a hard time in the house. After gentle prodding from Janice, Gina finally pointed the finger at [ANTM contender] Jade — something that neither Jade nor Janice herself appreciated. “No matter what — Rule #1, we never rat out our bitches — zip it!,” Janice ... yelled at Gina as she told her to go back to her seat at the table. “Zip it bitch, zip it, you’re dead in my book,” she added as Gina tried to respond. Gina broke into tears on the ride home, upset at Janice’s comments.

This episode brings into focus questions essential to the calibration of our own moral compasses:

1.  Is the imperative that we not rat out our bitches a categorical imperative, or does the carefully constructed reality of a reality show permit a suspension of the ethical?  As Jade herself once pointed out, ANTM stands for America’s Next Top Model not America’s Next Best Girlfriend.

2.  Janice—a kind of God figure in the episode under discussion— is legislator, enforcer, and judge of the moral laws that govern ANTM.  But is she herself bound by them?  If Jehovah may ask Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac, may Janice tempt Gina to rat out Jade, as she in fact did?  Does ANTM succeed in motivating the Kierkegaardian transition from the ethical to the religious? 

Discuss.