Visit my second blog:
Pregnancy is the new black, and black is great TV.
I just read that 19-year-old American Idol contestant Paris Bennett has confirmed that she is pregnant. 19 years old. I’m 19….and if I know anything for sure it’s that I don’t need anybody calling me anything that starts with an “M” and ends with an “ommy.” I’m glad we don’t have a dead baby on our hands, but is it just me or do babies seem like the new chihuahua puppies?
There have been plenty of celebrities who have gotten pregnant out of wedlock this past year, even some of my faves like Angelina Jolie and Halle Berry…and to make matters worse, no one is getting married (save Jessica Alba and Ashlee Simpson).
I’ve also noticed that pregnancy and network television have come together in an unholy matrimony. I was flipping through the channels the other day and almost dropped the remote when I saw Molly Ringwald. I confess that there was a certain point in time when I would not watch a film unless it had been made in the 1980s and was starring the said red-headed teen star.
The preview was for the new ABC Family show “The Secret Life of the American Teenager,” a show that comes in due time given the current American teen pregnancy controversies. I didn’t watch the show, but it appears to be doing well.
My mom’s new favorite show (that I will confess I sat and watched with her last week) is “The Baby Borrowers” on NBC. This show sets up teen couples who claim they want to get married with infants, toddlers, teenagers, and eventually elderly people that they must care and provide for. The show is actually sort of comical and some of the couples are actually quite mature, but what made me queazy was the fact that each couple has been given a house and a car, and are allowed to sleep together in the same bedroom…on national television. There’s no sex (I think) but I’d raise all kinds of hell if I had to sit and watch my fifteen-year-old daughter sleep with her boyfriend.
I bring all of this up because these shows have had me thinking these last few days—what should my response be as a Catholic? I can appreciate that these shows are portraying realistic situations. In a sense, the smiles you see on some of these young pregnant celebrities’ faces are more glamorized than scripted shows. But at the same time , there’s something icky about it all. For some reason I can’t shake the feeling that pregnancy is the new black, babies are the new Coach bag, and the entertainment industry is just maximizing on it…
What say you?
Pax Christi, Rebecca.
Yeah, I don’t know what’s going on with all this. I’m grateful, like you mentioned, that these people aren’t getting abortions. Maybe they’ve realized that they can spread their message better if they spawn a new generation to brainwash.
July 7th, 2008 at 9:55 am[...] Sometimes it seems as though that is the case here in America as well (though Hollywood seems to have a growing fascination with out of wed-lock births). [...]
July 9th, 2008 at 10:58 pmGood thoughts here. I was struck with similar ones when I saw the new pictures of Jamie Lynn Spears on the cover of OK! Magazine. She calls motherhood “fun”. Ain’t that cute.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/peopleNews/idUKN09419159200807 10
July 11th, 2008 at 8:56 am[...] Like Rebecca says, being pregnant is the new black. I guess Jamie Lynn Spears agrees. [...]
July 11th, 2008 at 9:03 amSure, it’s fun if you have money for a nanny anytime caring for your child gets in the way of your social life. Someday, Jamie Lynn will miss the support only a stable marriage could give her and her baby.
July 13th, 2008 at 2:45 pmRebecca, I agree the playing house part of “Baby Borrowers” is icky, especially since the ‘couples’ have no responsiblity in the real world (ie no jobs).