Duking it out takes on new meaning on TV
by Myriam Marquez, The Orlando Sentinel

    Two trailer-trash girls duke it out on national television. We should laugh it off as just another example of American frivolity in a culture of throwaway excess. Fat and supposedly happy Americans don’t take themselves too seriously.

   Today’s shows seek out the lowest uncommon denominator in our society. This hasn’t happened overnight. It has taken decades to spiral uncontrollably downward, and every time I think there’s no other place to go but up, another pathetic show or two or three drags us down.

   The absolute talk of the airwaves recently was a match that didn’t take but a couple of minutes between two scandal-mongering bad girls on the Fox Network’s Celebrity Boxing show. Tonya Harding, infamous for plotting to smash skating rival Nancy Kerrigan’s kneecap before the 1994 Olympics, relentlessly pounded Paula “I’m a good girl” Jones, whose sexual-harassment lawsuit against Bill Clinton led to political investigations that uncovered an intern named Monica “not” having sex with Mr. President.

   Of course, Paula only wanted her good name cleared. And Clinton the scum bucket should have apologized and spared us all the humiliation of two-plus years’ coverage into such boxer wars. Why care?

   Clinton’s a has-been. And after posing in tight jeans and for a nude magazine spread, plus getting a new nose, Paula’s good name can’t be murkier.

   But isn’t that precisely why people tune in to watch such spectacles?

   It was all meant in good fun, to provoke a laugh or two. And TV’s still for cheap thrills.