I had actually forgot this stupid show existed. I didn't even notice it had ended. When you have a job, even if you work from home, you don't pay attention to what's on TV. And nothing but junk comes on during the week anyway. So I'm guessing the only people who watched Maury were unemployed, bored, and easily entertained? Or retired, bored, and easily entertained? Well, either way, a person had to be pretty dumb to watch this on a regular basis. The fact that it managed to stay on for 30-something years is depressing. I randomly came across an episode on YouTube (I wonder about their algorithm sometimes, because I have no idea how that got recommended to me), and it jogged my memory of how the show just didn't focus on women who were trying to identify the father of their child. They also covered people who had various phobias, and they would play this game called "man or woman," where both cisgender and transgender women would walk out on the stage runway style, and the audience had to guess their biological sex. I know this was on long before inclusion, diversity, and safe spaces, but come on. That was absolutely degrading. And scaring people just for the entertainment of the audience was mean-spirited. They were in stitches over watching guests have meltdowns when seeing pictures of and being forced to confront a specific, intense fear that was ultimately ruining their life. Yes, what they were scared of, objectively, was not frightening (peaches, aluminum foil, olives, cotton balls), but that's why it's a phobia. It might not seem rational or logical from the perspective of people who don't suffer from having one, but that doesn't make it acceptable to laugh. It's an anxiety disorder. Oftentimes, when people are terrified of something, to the point of running away and crying, they most likely had a traumatic experience, and have attached their negative feelings to an item that was present at the time of the experience, or they might've grew up with a parent who had the phobia. No matter the reason, there's nothing amusing about mental illness. I thought it was disgusting how the studio audience was laughing. I had to stop watching, because although it was so many years back I felt bad for how the guests were being ridiculed. I'm glad this show finally ended, but it's done a lot of damage, socially. I really do blame programs like this for why people bully and judge each other. It'll take countless more years to reverse the effects of ignorance.
Review of Maury
Maury
(1991–2022)
Free round trip airfare and a nice hotel room aren't worth public humiliation
29 March 2024