Save the children

Like most other reality TV shows, Kid Nation is a show I wish I’d never watched. I want that hour of my life back. No, all the hours I’ve spent watching reality TV. Just like that scene from Goonies, when “Mouth” dives into the underground fountain, reclaiming pennies that never fulfilled the wish for something good to come along.

Yes, I regret believing that Kid Nation was a good idea, and I want to restore my faith in TV before they make a kids version of The Contender.

Aside from the obvious comparisons to Lord of the Flies and Survivor, isn’t there a more ominous, degrading side to Kid Nation–not in the outcome, but in our desire to watch a show that abandons 40 kids in a ghost town somewhere in the middle of New Mexico? William Golding’s novel was fiction, and Survivor comprises adults, so it’s easy to laugh at them and sleep peacefully afterward. But why do we want to watch the deliberate manipulation and horrors of peer pressure with a group of children, aged 8 to 15, who were obviously conned into thinking there would be something beneficial in the experience?

The whole concept of the show sounds like a grossly advertised, slightly modified “boot camp for kids” where they send repeat juvenile offenders. That might be a bit of a stretch, but not if you take into consideration the complaints filed against CBS, particularly the one from Janis Miles, the mother of a 12-year-old girl who burned her face while cooking during the show.

According to the LA Times, Miles asked for an investigation of “abusive acts to minors and possible violations of child labor laws.” This allegation, I’m sure, encompasses the fact that each kid received a stipend of $5,000 at the completion of the show and had a chance each week to win a gold star worth $20,000. And, oh yeah, four kids accidentally drank bleach out of an unmarked bottle.

CBS, in good taste, issued a statement regarding these allegations to The New York Times, stating, “These kids were in good hands and under good care with … safety structures that arguably rival or surpass any school or camp in the country.”

I don’t know if this is a fact, but I’d be surprised if child services would not be called were a parent to bring their child into an ER because of burns caused by cooking with hot oil. But CBS has that covered as well. According to the LA Times, creator of Kid Nation Tom Forman claimed that the Miles girl was the only contestant taken to the hospital. (Apparently drinking bleach doesn’t warrant expert care.) And except for the lucky few who won $20,000, the “contestants” weren’t allowed to call their parents at any point.

So what’s the benefit of the Kid Nation experience? Who is the show for? The parents, I guess, get to see their kids on TV and hold on to the money “given” to each child until that child turns 18. The kids, I guess, get nightmares, homesickness and great material for the required sixth-grade “What I Did This Summer” essay. The rest of us get to waste an hour every Wednesday watching kids freak out in the middle of the desert and succumb to peer pressure groaned out during the weekly “council meeting.”

And I’m sure CBS gets something too, probably in the millions, which a little bit of controversy always helps to increase. And is that the point? Is controversy such a great moneymaker, such a sure method to increase ratings, that we’re stuck in a cycle of demanding an increasingly outrageous premise for each new TV show?

If that’s the case, then let’s get on with it and start taping for a reality TV series based on Stephen King’s The Running Man, because a few burns, poisonings and violations of child labor laws really aren’t going to turn any heads by next season. Not if we keep watching, anyway.