<p>Well June (the mom) and Mike (Sugar Bear) have been together for eight years. That is most of Junes’ adult life. So right now, they appear to be a happy family. What will probably ruin them is fame (albeit fleeting most likely) and money. </p>
<p>^^ “IMO, she’s trash”. IMO she has many similarities to some of our celebrities. Children out of wedlock with multiple partners, trouble with the law and spends a lot on clothes, make-up, etc. to look beautiful ( at least for her daughter). She doesn’t share one thing however. She is not suffering from anorexia.</p>
<p>Ah yes, TLC. At some point it went from being The Learning Channel to being the Totally Lost Cause channel. I don’t watch it, since they make their money off modern day freak shows. </p>
<p>That said, I shake my head at people who invite the world to invade their little kid’s privacy day in and day out. Personally, I am glad my parents didn’t decide to broadcast my first poop, my pouty moments, or even my moments of happiness and triumph to the entire world. Frankly, if they didn’t want us to judge, they probably shouldn’t have signed the reality TV contract. I don’t judge the kids on these shows, but I sure judge the parents for stripping away the privacy of their children.</p>
<p>Wait, so do you feel this way about the parents of Ron Howard, Jodi Foster, Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen, Brooke Shields, Justin Bieber and on and on. Or what about the parents of our gold medal winning ladies Olympic team? </p>
<p>There are so many young people being promoted and commercialized for many reasons. To signal out these ( Alana’s family) folk as “trash, " " lost cause,” or “freak show”, is in my opinion very discriminatory. </p>
<p>They are poor (or were, haha), uneducated, obese. The white people we are allowed to dislike?</p>
<p>One could say that the US gymnastics team members, as well as the child actors you name, are/were engaged in more legitimate forms of entertainment or sport than either child beauty pageants or reality TV programming. By which I mean that elite gymnastics and professional acting, singing, or dance require actual talent. </p>
<p>The exploitation comes from the fact that Alana is ostensibly presented as herself, living her own childhood, yet her parents have decided to allow her to do this on national television and go along for the ride. I wish Alana well and don’t know enough about her parents to call them “trash.” I do not think it’s fair to any child for a parent to allow his/her private life to be filmed and become fodder for our national pop culture machine.</p>
<p>Kid actors and athletes perform and then go home, hopefully to a normal life. Usually their parents will try to shield them from the overly curious press in day to day life. They don’t invite the public into their home to ogle their kids every day, again and again.</p>
<p>Do you recall the story of the Dionne quintuplets? </p>
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<p>And the Dionne quintuplets did not even have their lives sold in seasons on DVD or posted on Youtube.</p>
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<p>I’m not singling them out. I’m thinking about TLC’s entire line up, with “informative” shows like “My Crazy Obsession”, i.e. “look at the weirdos”, “Nineteen Kids and Counting”, i.e. “look at the weirdos”, and “Toddlers and Tiaras”, i.e. “look at the weirdos”. Let’s not forget “My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding”, i.e. “let’s use an ethnic slur in the title”.</p>
<p>TLC is all about othering people and encouraging the general public to point and whisper and gossip. Their shows are indeed designed to be like “watching a train wreck.”</p>
<p>I’m not a big fan of “reality” TV, but I certainly can’t imagine allowing a camera in my home in order to allow America to “gawk” at my family and children. And that’s what these shows do. They turn families into sideshow circus acts. The parents may kid themselves that they are “educating” America about people like themselves, but really America just wants to point and laugh and thank their God that they’re not like that! It is exploitative of anyone under the age of 18, IMO.</p>
<p>I won’t even go in to how much Gypsy Wedding is hated by most Roma. As if our culture isn’t already grossly misrepresented and used for entertainment. I despise TLC.</p>
<p>Well, now I guess I have to watch, as annoying a title as this series has.</p>
<p>Gross out and fart jokes? Sure, I’m in. Pagentry stuff? Yuck, but oh well, it really doesn’t seem that much different than some of the other things little kid’s parents get them involved in. Making fun of obese Southern people? No, I don’t like that at all, that would be a real turn off.</p>
<p>The reality show exploitation of a little kid really is awful. But then again, I guess they are volunteers and maybe this money will help to improve her life.</p>
<p>As far as them being “white trash”, I don’t think one can say that about children, and I haven’t heard anything much about the dad. But as far as the mom goes…four kids with four different dads, never married to any, three of them in jail (if that’s true). If that isn’t white trash, I’m not sure what is!</p>
<p>I guess I’ll have to watch this show now. Dang.</p>
<p>Truthfully, Alana is the kind of kid that would have been going to auditions if they lived in LA or New York. She is one of the few kids from Toddlers and Tiaras that seems to enjoy the pageants since it is her time to shine. And yea, the family is very redneck, but not all that different from some of the families I grew up with. Heck, my sister looks like June! I think the family loves one another and knows who they are. </p>
<p>I have a classmate that was a grandmother at 28 and will be a great grandmother at 44 before the year is out. Thank heavens there is not a camera around that family or the ratings would be through the roof.</p>
<p>No one’s offended by the Kardashians? Making the Rob and Scott look like wimps? and etc. Laying out Kim’s 100 pairs of shoes, the 16 year old with an SUV? </p>
<p>What I find interesting is how fast the expression “Honey Boo Boo” entered our vocabulary. Instantly represents a sort of behavior.</p>
<p>The money is saved because of the Coogan Law, I’d think- a large percent has to be set aside til kids reach 18, iirc.</p>
<p>Sure I find that stuff offensive. The whole “reality” concept is offensive - to me, at least. It’s saying “My life is significant enough to be recorded for the edification of other people.” Or else “I have so little class that I’ll allow myself to look like an ass on television for a surprisingly small amount of money, and let my family do the same thing.”</p>
<p>Does the Coogan law apply in every state? I thought it was California only.</p>
<p>I do like Alana from the clips I’ve seen, though.</p>
<p>Coogan law is only California and very few other states have rules requiring money to be put in trusts (New York does). My son is a SAG-AFTRA and Equity member and, in Texas, there are no laws covering his earnings. Even Coogan only requires, I believe 15% to be put aside in a trust. Of course, we use all of his earnings for his benefit (classes, lessons, summer programs, transportation, etc). The rest is set aside for college expenses. Don’t know what Honey BooBoo’s set up is - but I have also seen parents as “managers” taking enormous cuts from their kids’ salaries. </p>
<p>Said it before - reality TV reeks of exploitation to me. Don’t know how those producers can sleep at night. Sure the parents consent to this, but legally, there is no way for a minor to issue consent. They just have to “go along” with what the parent decides to do.</p>
<p>Gee and I thought the whole purpose of these shows was to make viewers feel better about their own lives! If we can’t look down on others, what fun is left?</p>
<p>SNL had “the mom & Alana” on Weekend Update last night (really Bobby Monighan & Vanessa Bayer.) I did not know that on the show, they had to use subtitles at times because of their accents; D2 said that she’d caught a few subtitled scenes when she’d been flipping channels. Now I feel I need to watch one episode.</p>
<p>As for kid actors & athletes: adult outcomes are often not great and that’s WITHOUT their private lives being broadcast. That is the dividing line for me. Privacy is a beautiful thing.</p>
<p>$40,000 added to whatever Mike is making could change their lives. Since the show has become popular ( more people watched this show than one of the political conventions one night when they were both on at the same time. Can’t remember which convention.), maybe they can negotiate more money.</p>
<p>Let me be clear, as the op, that I do not condone, like or regularly watch reality TV. I actually hate most of it. I just saw this show while channel surfing. I admit I watched out of curiosity. But I was surprised at my reaction. While these folks are so different from anyone in my circle of life, I perceived a loving family with a sense of humor that enjoyed being with each other. </p>
<p>I do not condone putting your child’s life on display. I was just surprised, quite frankly, that I was not completely disgusted.</p>