Given yesterday’s post, y’all know I’m grappling with one significant loss. But it’s not fair to the shows I did get a chance to look at not to post something. At the same time, I’ve got, well, issues. So a compromise. I’m writing up the shows, but I’m not going to worry about links or photos. Fair ‘nuf?
First up, on Animal Planet at 9 p.m. on Friday, is Jockeys, which oddly enough focuses on the humans on top of the race horses. Given my personal love of horse-racing, I found it fascinating. Beyond that, it was pretty much your standard reality show about some odd-ball profession. I shouldn’t say that. What I really liked about this show was that you got more of a sense of who these people are. You saw them at home, interacting with the people in their lives. Okay, some of the danger they face seems a tad over-hyped. At the same time, the danger is backed up with numbers.
The show does have some issues with violence – in an upcoming episode, there’s a fist fight between two of the jockeys. Additionally, you do see horses tumbling and jockeys potentially getting hurt. That being said, when it comes to violence, I get much more worried about the human on human malevolent stuff than I do about things that happen. A horse falls and, yeah, it can be deadly and that’s not good. In fact, it’s very sad for someone connected to the person who died.
But that’s a far different thing than someone killing someone else. Horses don’t choose to stumble and fall – thereby killing their riders. Humans do choose to be violent toward each other. That’s a big difference. We can’t choose who we are, but we can choose how to behave. Which means that our kids are not what they do, so we can always love them for who they are, even if we’re not too excited about what they do sometimes. That being said, jockeys might be fun for your kids to watch, especially if they love horses.
The big show on Sunday night is the Grammy Awards for recorded music. It’s on CBS at 8 p.m. If you’ve got a teen in the house, it might be worth looking at to get a sense of what teens are excited about. Better yet, if you can get your teen to watch with you, you might get a better sense of what he or she really likes in music. Not a bad thing.
The other good part about shows like the Grammys is that you can develop an appreciation for your kids’ music. Not all rap is about killing cops and beating ‘hos. And the form, itself, is interesting. And there’s nothing to take the sting out of adolescent rebellion by turning out to be hipper than your kids. Not acting like a teen, but knowing teen music, for example. You can ask my daughter what a pain in the backside that was. I mean, it’s one thing to sneer at Brittany Spears. It’s another to sneer because she’s so last week.
Also, at 8 p.m., on the Disney Channel is the premiere of Sonny With a Chance, a sitcom starring Disney’s latest sweet teen singer, Demi Lovato, although she doesn’t sing in the show. It’s a show within a show about a teen actor Sonny who joins a sketch comedy show sharing lot space with a teen soap. The opening sketch was hysterical – even my husband laughed out loud. The rest was a tad uneven, but there was more funny stuff than not.
Finally, and in this case, the best is We Shall Not Be Moved – the lastest installment of NickNews with Linda Ellerbee. This is a look at racism in America from the perspective of kids who are interested in ending it. While it is Ellerbee who ultimately reminds us that our strength actually lies in our diversity, the story of kids from two very different parts of Chicago who came together to provide other kids with simply the right language to talk about race is compelling. And there are other stories, too.
The best part is that there’s a tremendous amount of meat here, especially if you let your kids lead the discussion. And I’m sure they will have plenty to say. It’s an issue we all face, even if you live in an area where everyone looks like you. Chances are, you don’t have to go too far to find places where people don’t look like you, speak the same language as you or have the same culture as you. This is a good thing.
Anne Louise Bannon
Your Family Viewer
