Popular Culture Review Vol. 8, No. 2, August 1997 | Page 8

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Island freak shows of an earlier era, TV talk shows of the nineties
routinely mock the dignity of their on-stage guests, many of whom are
paraded in front of audiences because of their social and physical
dysfunctions. Of a recent encounter with talk show host Jerry
Springer on a PBS roundtable discussion, the syndicated columnist
Arianna Huffington writes:
I handed him a list of local heroes from around the
country who turned their own troubled lives around
and are now helping others do the same. 'Why don't
you put them on your show?' I asked him. 'Not only
do they do great work, but they would make great
television.'
'Is any one of them sleeping with a llama?' he
smirked.^
Springer's cynicism has a curious flip side in the annals of American
electronic and print journalism. Dogs who save the lives of their
owners by attacking armed burglars, or barking at the onset of house
fires, are routinely referred to as heroic in the mass media.
(Sometimes the process is reversed, as in the case of a border collie
named Rodeo who was "heroically rescued," as an NBC news reporter
put it, by helicopter from a rooftop during a recent flood in
California's Central Valley.) In the tabloids, even a fish can be a
hero:
As flames swept through her home, Sandi Shawn
was roused from her sleep by her pet angelfish—
which leaped from its tank and landed with a wet
smack on her face!
The 27-year-old Detroit mother and her three
daughters would have been roasted alive in their
beds if the little fish hadn't performed what can
only be described as an incredible act of love.
Extra food treats were her reward for her lifesaving
act of heroism.^