“Crystal’s Soapbox,” published each Thursday, is a column by conservative Texas mom Crystal Arcand who loves to rant about issues that relate to her kids….and yours.
Fox is [was, see below] premiering a new show next Wednesday night (January 13) that I will not be watching. Called “Our Little Genius,” it’s essentially “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” for the school-age set. Exceptionally smart children are asked academic questions that get increasingly harder for increasingly larger sums of money. The money doesn’t go to a college fund for the child, or even a children’s charity. It goes to the child’s parents. Nothing like making Brilliant Billy set you up financially. And I won’t even get into how smarmy and ick-inducing Kevin Pollack seems as a host.
So why won’t I be watching it? I believe child pornography is wrong. Wait, what? No, the kids aren’t nude – they’re fully dressed, and they don’t do anything of a sexual or inappropriate nature. But they’re still being exploited as their parents whore out their brains for money. The title alone conjures up visions of those baby beauty pageants so many people abhor, with parents trotting out their children so everyone can “ooh” and “aah” over them. I mean, “Our Little Genius?” Gee, that doesn’t take all the focus off of the child and put it on the parents at all.
What makes it worse is that the child has no say in anything. Does the bitty brainiac have a say as to whether or not he thinks he’ll get the next question right? Nope. Mom and Dad get to bet on whether or not they think their kid can answer the next question. That opens a whole other can of worms in terms of family relationships when the child has to deal with parents that either don’t have faith in him to answer the questions, or pressure him to know them all to make more money for them. I can only imagine the grilling and quizzing that will go on before a show to make sure the poor child’s brain is stuffed with every possible answer imaginable. Does the pint-size prodigy get to call it quits when he’s had enough? Nope. Mom and Dad decide when they’ve made enough money off of their little brain-whore.
Am I getting too harsh with the whole pimping allegory thing? You might think so, but I don’t. Any time an adult benefits monetarily from a child that is not given the choice to say no and walk away whenever he or she feels the need is a time when a child is being taken advantage of – whether by parents or television producers. We have to come to the realization that a child’s mind, emotions, and self-esteem are to be protected as fiercely as we aim to protect their bodies.
UPDATE:
Mark Burnett, in a very wise decision, has chosen to pull the program, saying in a statement released by Fox, “I recently discovered that there was an issue with how some information was relayed to contestants during the pre-production of ‘Our Little Genius.’” Burnett says, “As a result, I am not comfortable delivering the episodes without reshooting them. I believe my series must always be beyond reproach, so I have requested that Fox not air these episodes.” There have been reports describing alternate endings being shot when the children were “taking their losses really hard.”
Well, hallelujah – somebody in Lalaland turned his brain on – momentarily, at least.
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