Top TV Stories of 2009: Jon & Kate

It's too easy to call Jon and Kate Plus 8 a train wreck and leave it at that.

If ever there was a cautionary tale about the perils of easy fame, this is it. In the course of a year, we watched Jon and Kate
go from a benignly dysfunctional reality TV family to a textbook case of what happens to "normal" people under the glare of TV lights. The Gosselins seemed to lose themselves completely in the glare of the spotlight and jettisoned their values and morals for more camera time. Calling their story a "train wreck" doesn't even begin to surmise the dissolution of a family and the viewing public's fascination with its implosion.

Whatever personal flaws ruined their marriage, the glaring addition of TV cameras sure didn't help. Jon and Kate's story doesn't just say a lot about a couple that couldn't handle the giddiness of instant fame, it also reveals uncomfortable truths about us as a viewing public.

As the ratings proved, few people care to watch if you're happily raising a family with eight kids. What people tune in to see is the carnage of a marriage on the rocks, of people publicly ripping their spouses apart in morning show interviews while jockeying for public sympathy. As appalled as I was by their behavior, I was even more disgusted with myself for looking.

Why was it so hard to not read about Jon's various dalliances with blond bimbos? Or to turn the channel when Kate was tearing up on The View? We are riveted not by the uniqueness of their situation but by its bland everyday-ness. Stripped down, this is merely a tale of marriage gone sour, undone by stress, as the parties involved grow apart, played out for all to see.

And as any long-time viewer could see, the family changed with their growing popularity. Kate, always a nag, became an outright shrew and Jon, often passive and careless, became downright deadbeat. When allegations of infidelity began hitting the tabloids, Jon and Kate went from cute reality TV family to a cautionary tale of epic dysfunction.

I don't even know where to start with the rumors that began to clutter up the Internet. First, there were pictures of Jon partying late at night, then pictures of the couple apart on their anniversary, followed by rumors that Kate was having an affair with her bodyguard, and on and on and on. Currently, from an outsiders perspective, their lives are in shambles, both still desperately trying to capitalize on their fame.

This whole thing, is, at its center, a sad allegory about the perils of instant fame and the implosion of a family, their unhappiness and bitterness willingly made public for the world to almost gleefully rejoice in.

I hope that, as someone who covers entertainment news in my 9 to 5 job, I never have to see another story about these two again. I think I'm on par with the rest of America in hoping that they disappear from the tabloid spotlight and perhaps take some time to reassemble their lives into something approaching stability. But, I don't have high hopes for that. I get the feeling we'll be seeing tell-alls and more tears shed on The View and worst of all, the eight kids at the heart of the show start to act out. There's no happy ending here.