KIM AND KRIS - WHO KARES?

SERIOUSLY?

The Kardashians are clever folks indeed.  They have turned the skill of doing absolutely nothing productive into a multi-million dollar empire, and have captured the attention of millions of viewers each week who watch them do...I don't know what.  I am proud to say that I have never watched an episode of the Kardashian's show.  I'm not a reality tv snob - I love my hour each week with Rachel Zoe, and Storage Wars is pretty entertaining.  There's just something about the Kardashians and all of their self-promoting excess that seems gross.  Plus, the sound of their nasally, squeaky and utterly dumb voices makes my skin crawl - when my kids watch their show I have to leave the room.

So what to make of their brief, ridiculous marriage?  That 20 carat ring that Kim flashed so proudly on the cover of every magazine?  Obviously it was a publicity stunt, their wedding full of product placement (Vera Wang, anyone?), intended only to bring in viewers.  How could anyone take them seriously?  But sadly enough, many people did...especially the young girls who watch them, read about them, emulate them and (Lord help me) sound like them.  They should all be ashamed of themselves for putting on such a circus of a sham wedding which, from what I've read and heard, earned them 18 million dollars, or $10,000 per hour of the marriage.


The trouble I have with all of this is not so much that they put on this freak show of a wedding - it's that the media, the world, everyone, is taking this seriously.  CNN, the Today Show, Good Morning America, online news outlets - they are all covering this as though it were real news.  It's disturbing to me on so many levels, but mostly because marriage is a serious business, and these goofballs have turned it into a joke.  I'd have a lot more respect for them if they'd just come out and admit it was all for the sake of entertainment...in fact, I might even have watched the wedding, just to see the bling and the flowers and the clothes everyone wore if they had done just that.  But for me, or you, or CNN to actually discuss this as though it matters is just wrong.


Let's switch the focus from the Kardashian's 72 day marriage to couples who have worked, fought, loved and  succeeded for 20, 30, 40 years.  People like - oh, I don't know - you and me?  Those of us who take our marriages to heart, who know what it means to commit ourselves to making it work, without any kind of product placements, endorsements, or publicity.  Or those of us whose marriages end, and have to pick ourselves up from the mess of divorce and make our lives work again.  Why isn't there a tv show about people like us?  Well, we know why - it's boring, ordinary and filled with day-to-day humdrum stuff.  But that's what life is - that's what reality really is.  So enough with Kim, Kris, and the rest of the Krew.  They've made a mockery of marriage, but mostly they've made a mockery of themselves.

EWWWW.