Learning. When we see this word, it conjures up images of people slumped over books or staring glassy-eyed at some droning professor long bereft of any passion for the subject matter. But learning encompasses everything, whether it is the fascinating complexities of the natural world or the knowledge that there exists sentient individuals that eat their own poop for others to masturbate to. The Learning Channel and Discovery Channel (henceforth collectively abbreviated as TLCDC) acknowledge the general theory that the spectrum of “learning” is essentially limitless, as is exhibited by a large portion of their current programming focusing on the re-introduction of the world to all matter of flawed humanity in the form of the Freakshow, albeit now slathered with a thick layer of cuddles that obscures it’s inherently exploitative nature and the Thank-Fuck-That’s-Not-Me sentiment that dwells in the heart of even the most sanctimonious asshole.

TLCDC has the perfect visual snare for those of us who wander through channels like an Israelite lost in a mall parking lot—Freaks! Just think about it. You’re flipping through the wasteland of reality shows, dull sports and reruns of terrible syndicated comedy when suddenly, you blast by TLCDC, pause for a moment as the brain processes the flashed image, cautiously flip back…Oh My. It’s the classic car accident infatuation, but TLCDC figures that as long as they frame these tortured individuals in a positive light, they’re free to parade them.

Now I’m not going to digress into some “Ruthless” rant about how people like this should be spiked off the delivery room floor, corralled into catacombs or be gifted to the Mengele Institute of The Dubious Sciences because I must say that I really feel for many of these individuals, being that life is difficult enough for Normals, much less for somebody dealing with some of these truly perplexing deformities and maladies. Yes, most of them have my genuine sympathy, but that doesn’t mean I want them to have a grand stage where they or their parents can crawl up my ass with a bullhorn and bellow about how awesome and triumphant they are and how their God isn’t a total dick.

So step right up, Folks! Come stare in awe at Nature’s Forgotten Children! All Manner of Impossible awaits caged behind these heavy curtains to toss your senses like a cork on New Year’s! Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls, Children of All Ages! It is my distinguished honor to present you with…

The Two-Headed Girl:

They’ve been on the scene for quite some time. Hell, I recall them being on Oprah over a decade ago, back when a fella had to roll the dice that the talk show scene would provide him some oddity because the internet was still a mighty mystery. Most recently, we got a glimpse into their daily life as teenage girls, meaning two heads or not, they’re bound to be vapid, superficial bitches. As expected, we follow them through their snotty day, only pausing here and there so they can explain to us whatever neurological juggling act they have to do when it’s time to whack a softball, drive a car or prevent a modern-day Hercules from checking off #2 and #12 from his Labor List. Then, the sick makers of the show have the audacity to ask them about boyfriends, meaning they’re forcing us to ponder the intricacies of sex with somebody of such “unique” design who also happens to be sixteen. They are not simply satisfied with our marveling, they want us to intrude well beyond good taste because the mind-boggling semantics make it seem ok. It’s not. Don’t go there, Mr. TLCDC Producer, uh-uh.

Exploitation Level: High. These girls function very normally, so the real story has been left to our tacky imaginations where tasteful boundaries do not exist.

The 200 Flavors of Midget and Dwarf:

For the run-of-the-mill variety of these “little people,” I say eat it. You’re short and have the forehead of a telekinetic without the perks…big fucking deal. Your life is a series of mild inconveniences and your overcoming of them is barely remarkable. You might be on the receiving end of a casual double-take from a passerby every now and again, but the odds of you really freaking somebody out, even a kid, are slim as your stunted forms are so well-entrenched in our culture; and in cute ways to boot. There is however, a strain of small that really breaks my calloused heart—the Primordial Dwarf. These people are normally proportioned, but tiny—we’re talking like sub 3-feet here and weighing barely in the teens. There was this poor little girl who was around nine years old or so and weighed about twelve pounds. Instead of charging at life with her tank brimming with overcompensation like in those shows where midgets bitch about there not being midget-specific clothes, she cried endlessly and just begged aloud for normality in her hauntingly high voice. Watching that was sad because here was a person that would forever be treated like a child while oddly, her more larger, more disproportioned peers seem almost commonplace in our minds as they hammer out our Christmas gifts and their effigies pepper the lawns of our White Trash. Really though--If 98% of the obstacles in your life can be obliterated by a stepstool, you don’t have it so bad.

Exploitation Level: Low. Very Low.

Tumor Kids:

An unexpected glimpse of these poor kids will have your mind doing somersaults as you alternatively mutter “Oh my God” and “Get in here” to whoever happens to be nearby. There was this kid named Novemtree who was from somewhere in SE Asia…it was almost impossible to make out facial features beneath the massive amounts of tissue that had ballooned his head to the size of a baby elephant’s. On another show, I caught an eyeful of a girl whose entire face was basically a massive nose—not to be cruel, but my first thought after “I’m not fucking watching this” was Opus from Bloom County. There wasn’t much well-spoken English in these stories, so aside from the visuals, I probably know more overall about whatever child got the lead in that Christian Children’s Fund ad…by the way, I wonder how Raquel is doing?

Exploitation Level: Low. Could be higher, but the Third World is two full worlds away from me.

Harlequin Babies:

Yowza. This might be the 9-2 off-suit hole cards of genetics. Fortunately for these babies, they typically die very early, sparing them a life of amazing discomfort in every form. There was one show, however, that followed the life of a now-teenage boy stricken with this horrible disorder where his skin is constantly sloughing off like that of a microwaved Irishman. To compensate for this, he must eat a massive amount of food throughout the day and night simply to maintain his body mass. When he’s not doing this, or making it snow epidermis, he’s slathering himself in lotion to keep his skin moist and less prone to the infections that normal skin would stiff-arm with ease. All in all, he perpetually lives the life of a burn victim that will never properly heal and his every action might lead to the demise that he’s ducked since birth. Again, points to him for surviving this long, plus his innocence makes me admire him because he’s never had to be anything but strong, so he doesn’t possess the bloated pride that might sour his struggle.

Exploitation Level: Medium. It would be higher, but the kid’s dignity saves him, much to the chagrin of whatever PT Barnum descendent developed this show.

Litterers Will Be Prosecuted:

Couples wanting a child perpetually find themselves throwing up gamete airballs and going bankrupt buying pregnancy tests, none of which will turn black and read “God Says: Give It Up, Bitch," and end the futility once and for all. So they flee to God’s arch-nemesis, Science, to correct their traitorous plumbing. Now there’s probably some wonderful natural mechanism that has doomed these people to a DNA dead-end, but sadly, Science can be used to unwind the order of things and often well beyond the intended point. So suddenly, Infertile Turtles find themselves simultaneously prego with enough kids to bring a smile to Joseph Smith’s lips. Now this is when the real nuisance comes in—we’re supposed to feel bad for them because they have all these fucking kids! Now their life has more screaming, shitting and puking in it than the Alabama State Fair and we’re supposed to feel bad that they purposely forsook their clean, selfish lives and decided to let some low-paid lab tech create a frappe out of their fluids and blast it into the woman’s uterus with whatever force was necessary to best her mate’s impotent dribble. Honestly, inbred farmers do the same thing to cows and with more dignity. Also, thanks for shitting six kids into the world that you can’t afford to take care of…I’m sure my taxes will somehow make it into their college funds, preventing me from buying a Porsche the second my own, singly-born children leave the nest. If you can’t pop one over the fence after hundreds or thousands of sexual encounters where the foreplay solely involved checking the woman’s temperature, go check out an Adoption Agency…there’s probably a reason why humans beings only have two nipples.

Exploitation Level: Low. These people are actually exploiting you into sending them free diapers.

The Girl Without a Face:

Mel Gibson starred in a similarly-titled film where he played a super-handsome man with a half-scarred face and Billy Idol had a song called “Eyes Without a Face,” which is a pretty apt description of how this girl began her life…The Girl Without a Face would happily say fuck you to Mel Gibson and Billy Idol, presuming she can speak. Possibly the most horrific facial deformity I have ever seen, GWAF had to literally have a face built for her by doctors from virtually nothing, the original structure being so extremely minimal that it resembled a clam shell with googly eyes glued to it like a souvenir you’d find along any trashy boardwalk. I have no doubt that best effort was made all around and the lofty goal of a ballpark face was achieved, unfortunately--please forgive me--it approximates the face of a Tusken Raider. Now this is the type of deformity that freezes unprepared people in their tracks. This deformity blows minds, crushes courtesy and practically demands explanation for the sake of one’s sanity. It is also one of the most glaring examples of why TLCDC can eat my properly-encoded ass.

Exploitation Level: High. Difficult visuals with a narrative that might as well be a sermon. If they had openly forsaken their God instead of sucked up to him even more, things would’ve been way classier.

Fatties:

If there’s anybody I don’t feel so bad for, it’s these people. If they somehow violated the laws of matter and gained 100 pounds every time they had a bite of a rice cake, I might pity them, but we all know this is not the case. If you eat 20,000 calories before you get out of bed, which is never, and burden some poor caretaker with your hyper-gluttonous lifestyle, you’re kind of a Dick. Hell, I’ll spot you up to 500 pounds, but the moment you realize that you are no longer able to move and it’s not due to a spinal cord injury from a stray Crip bullet, your humanity fades and you essentially become a giant tapeworm that will scream like a withdrawing junkie when shorted a dozen donuts. So we get to see these Meat Mountains cry salty tears from atop their mashed, fetid mattresses or the couches they’ve literally grown intowhile they rattle off their staggering daily intakes and we are somehow expected to feel for them. We see them struggle their weight down “low” enough so that they can get their traitorous stomachs clamped down to the size of an egg, a laughably medieval means to damn the caloric river that flows during their every waking moment. Then, in the end, we’re expected to applaud their bravery when they waste away to a still-obese individual wearing a jumpsuit of hanging skin. Out of any of these stories, these are the least tragic because frankly, I’d rather have to meter every bite and exercise like a maniac if I was dealt that bad genetic hand, but it’s still a hell of a lot better than having two heads or no fucking face.

Exploitation Level: High Fructose Corn Syrup. There’s not much to the story but “I’m fat.” The viewer points and wonders “where does the poop go?”

In general, the above examples aren’t meant to be objects of ridicule; rather they are intended as evidence to indict TLCDC for their exploitative programming. I can only speak for myself, but as I’ve watched these programs proliferate over the last few years, I’m left wondering about their necessity. What, if anything, do I learn from them? What merits do they possess?

After spending many hours deciphering my awkward reactions to these tales of woe, I find myself a little annoyed because these programs bait you into uncomfortable mindsets. At face value, they are chronicles of triumph over adversity and tests of faith and, if you even possess a shred of decency, you’ll feel uplifted when the credits roll. On the other hand, if you’re like me, you’ll skip the feel-good schmaltz and look for the bad… and what you’ll find is that yes, you are watching this primarily due to morbid curiosity, you’re watching it to learn the answer to the unanswerable question “What the fuck?” Countless people suffer every day from injury, disease and poverty, but they don’t suffer in a sensational way and therefore, do not entice a meandering audience into the Venus Fly Trap of TLCDC.

So maybe this isn’t precisely a bunch of Victorian onlookers with rotten tomatoes ready in hand, gawking at a shackled Lobster Boy in blatant disgust, but then again, substituting a packaged sense of concern doesn’t suddenly make it acceptable to stare at people whether it is because of harmless amazement or genuine horror. I say leave these stories for the medical community, charitable institutions and others that could help alleviate these people’s suffering leaving us, the useless masses, oblivious for we have nothing to offer but pity at best, scorn at worst.

In the end, don’t watch these shows…it’s nothing but Rotten.com with saccharine storylines and a bunch of self-righteous people trying to make lemonade out of Chernobyl Lemons. So thanks, TLCDC, for reminding me of the inherent foulness of my own humanity. And oh yeah—“Thank Fuck that’s not me.”