Gary, the points you made was what i expected the show
to be, so i did not even bother to watch.
--- Gary Peterson <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I watched part of this - but didn't see that he got
> an augmentive
> communications device - did ABC give him one? I
> know the main
> focus was on his mother and the Little League
> baseball team, but I
> did think they should have thought of enabling him
> to communicate
> his needs - after all, his mother isn't going to be
> around forever,
> ascruel as that sounds.
>
> Kat
>
>
> Kat,
>
> The point you make here is by no means cruel. I
> have lots of
> reaction from watching this. This was my first time
> watching the
> show. Generally I stay away from all these reality
> shows just
> because they all want us to believe they can take a
> sad or
> unfortunate situation and make it all better in an
> hours time. I
> think we all no, it just ain't so. The only reason
> I watched it
> was because of Anthony's recommendation.
>
> Now I'm far from even half way knowledgeable when
> it comes to
> building a house, but I have to think even with all
> those
> volunteers working together, it had to take a
> minimum of 6 months
> to do what all those people did. Speaking of time,
> does anyone
> here know how long the entire show took to finish?
> I'm guessing
> lots longer then ABC would like us to believe. And
> let us not
> forget the probably tons of material that didn't
> make the final
> cut.
>
> I give the show high praise because in the end, it
> did what it set
> out to do. I mean the family got their house and I
> guess that was
> the bottom line. What bothers me is how the show
> chose to get
> there. I will probably take a lot of heat for what
> I'm about to
> say here, but so be it.
>
> After watching the first 10 minutes or so, I felt as
> if I were
> watching something straight out of the Jerry Lewis
> telethon. In
> the beginning we get introduced to Aaron and his
> family. Then the
> host of the show spends waaay to much time telling
> Mom how great
> and wonderful she is because of all she does for
> Aaron. As much as
> they tried to show us that Aaron was just your
> average 14 year old,
> sadly I for one was left with just the opposite
> feeling. I think
> the message was very deliberately designed to say:
> "here's this severely disabled kid, and we want to
> keep pounding
> that point into you are audience at home, so
> whatever you do
> don't change the channel, because by the end of our
> show, are
> friend Aaron and his Mom will magically be able to
> sweep Aaron's
> disability under the rug, and we can all go home and
> live happily
> ever after, and won't we from Extreme Makeover be
> really cool."
>
> I also thought the show put to much emphasis on
> Aaron and his Mom.
> I wanted to know lots more about the relationship
> between him and
> the rest of his family. More interaction between
> Aaron and his
> brother and sister. For those of you who don't know
> me, as well
> has having C-P, I'm also totally blind. So before
> watching the
> show, I thought of having my Supported Living staff
> watch the show
> with me. But after having it on for the first 5
> minutes, I decided
> there was enough dialog and sound so I let myself
> just imagine the
> visuals on my own. So There's a chance there were
> visual parts
> that may have addressed some of my above concerns.
>
> This show might have had great potential. But with
> the media's
> across the board attitude towards disability, in my
> view it fell
> way short of the mark. Once again the media has
> left those nice
> average Americans who would rather take their queues
> about what it
> meansto be disabled from people like Jerry Lewis and
> his kids with
> a feeling of:
> "Thank God!! Another problem wiped away in an hour,
> and ain't we
> glad when we go to bed at night that we ain't
> disabled."
>
> Thanks to all for reading my rant.
>
> Gary
>
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