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Last week, the world was riveted (probably) to the near-tragedy of Abby Sunderland, a brave teenager who was attempting to break the record for youngest person to ever circumnavigate the globe in a sailboat alone. After months at sea, her ship lost communication in the Indian Ocean. She activated her distress beacon, and for two days it was unknown whether she was alive or dead. Then, miraculously (probably) she was rescued. It was a huge relief for the Sunderland family. And for the production company that is making a Sunderland Family REALITY TV SHOW. From the AP
LOS ANGELES — A Southern California film production company says it is creating a reality TV show based on the family of Abby Sunderland, the 16-year-old sailor rescued from the Indian Ocean last week while trying to sail around the world alone.
Magnetic Entertainment says on its website the show, titled “Adventures in Sunderland” will focus on how the young sailor’s parents have encouraged her and her six siblings to become world-class adventurers.
Sunderland’s father, Laurence Sunderland, confirmed the deal in a story published Monday in the New York Post. The Post reports that filming began four months ago.
Ugh. UGH! It would be one thing if this national news story brought the Sunderland family to the attention of Hollywood producers who decided they would make great subjects for a reality TV show. Even that would be questionable because it would basically be exploiting the near-death of your 16-year-old daughter in order to participate in an intellectually bankrupt entertainment structure based on emotional manipulation, schadenfreude, and instant gratification. But people have done worse. Right, Hitler? But filming began FOUR MONTHS AGO? Who isn’t doing what they are doing in order to get a reality TV show at this point? I’m probably being filmed right now. If so, I would like to VOTE MYSELF OFF THIS ISLAND. (Thanks for the tip, Tyler.)
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I bet she’s not even in that boat….
There is no boat.
She’s going to need a bigger boat?
I know you don’t particularly care what some anonymous stranger/lurker on the internet thinks, but you’re comments are reliably funny. She will indeed need a bigger boat, Steve.
In the pilot, young Vasco is encouraged by his parents to be the youngest person ever to die climbing Mt. Everest.
Someone should do a reality tv show about Videogum. It would be really cool. They’d follow Gabe all day around his apartment while he watched the internet and then blogged about it. Simultaneously they could follow members of the community at their day jobs where they’re reading Videogum instead of working. I think America’s ready.
I believe a Real World: Videogum was at one point discussed.
Can this include live action productions of You Can Make It Ups?
GabeHateGabeHateGabeHate
For sweeps week young Vasco is challenged by Hollywood movie star Christopher Walken to be the youngest person to play Russian Roulette.
I would pre-order that shit on dvd! Maybe. Ahh probably not. Nevermind.
How about a reality show starring TV producers desperately trying to find stars for their next reality show? It could be called “We Have Definitely Not Run Out Of Ideas, America!”
It’s only a matter of time. Bravo probably already has this in development. That’s what it would be called- “In Development.”
They couldn’t use Arrested Development as the title because that begins and ends in a boat
Aren’t you just describing modern day pop culture?
He’s a shipbuilder trying to get his home schooled children onto a reality show about their global sailing adventures. I think it’s safe to say these guys are from the same cul-de-sac as the tornado-chasing, UFO-conspiracy-theorizing Heenes.
My point is that these charming eccentrics are not America – America will just tune in to watch them while we’re microwaving dinner, provided that the stunt that brings them into our midst doesn’t play TOO liberally with the kids’ safety.
It’s amazing how they always find the pretty white girl floating in the southern oceans…
Hey, they found Walt, too. WAAAAAAAAAAALT!
What-adults-will-do-to-their-children-to-be-the-next-Speidi is definitely the Best New Party Game.
Of course what would’ve been a GREAT reality show is if she had died of thirst in the middle of the ocean, and then camera crews could have followed her parents around as they went through the process of mourning the death of their beautiful child. So yknow, WIN/WIN, CONGRATULATIONS AMERICA.
“16 Year Old Girl v. Wild”
10 pm Mondays on Nickelodeon Survival
That’s in production for 2013.
Too bad human kind and the Earth won’t be exist to see it…
be exist (?)
“The English language, how does it work?” – jwormyk
I wouldn’t be opposed to setting most 16 year olds adrift in the ocean. (I said “most,” baby monsters!!)
i don’t want to watch a show about 16 year olds that have accomplished more than me. it’s great that there are kids who are accomplishing things, but i really don’t need any more salt in the wound.
Man, i hate when a teenager finally does something besides imitating rap videos and aspiring to be like characters from Gossip Girl, then their greedy, emotionally stunted parents try to turn them into a modern “typical” American teenager. Yuck.
But that girl is awesome. High five to getting emancipated!
Parents: Ruining Children’s Lives since 10,000 BCE.
Eh, I liked this show better when it was called “The Voyage of the Mimi” and starred a young Ben Affleck.
Who’s with me, PBS nerds?
AHH! As a young child who was only allowed to watch PBS and Star Trek (the other kids were really jealous, because I definitely had all the friends) I am so with you. Although this, I believe, was viewed during 5th Grade when we went through a course to get our boating license? In retrospect it makes no sense, we were certainly too young to be out on boats on on our own, and I live in a landlocked state with one major body of water that was far, far away from my elementary school. That being said, I’m pretty sure that I could still rig up some plastic and sticks to collect fresh drinking water if stranded on an island. Take that, Abby Sunderland.
OH MY GOD, THAT WAS BEN AFFLECK?
In other news, god damn you for getting the Voyage of the Mimi song stuck in my head.
If it makes you feel any better, I’ve had that song stuck in my head since I posted that.
It’s been a maritime-y day, needless to say.
Have you guys been following this whole story? Much like the Heenes, It just keeps getting worse. Apparently, to sum up what experienced sailors have been saying, she was in the wrong boat, in the wrong place, at the wrong time and didn’t have nearly enough experience to pull this off. She was sailing in the southern hemisphere in a notoriously dangerous stretch of ocean in WINTER. Now the producer of the would’ve-been reality show is saying (on Larry King) that neither she nor her boat were prepared for the trip but her dad pushed her to start in order to meet sponsorship deadlines. She was only gone 11 days when she had to make her first stop for repairs.
Ughs all around.
It is going to come out, I am certain, that putting her in danger like this was an attempt by the father to sacrifice the young daughter to appease Artemis so that he could get to Troy, Kansas for a regional sales rep meeting. It was just too darn windy otherwise.
Your child almost dying is the new Star Search.
When I first heard she went missing, my immediate thought was that she was dead. Then I felt bad for being so cynical.
I see that I was cynical for the wrong reason.
“Adventures in Sunderland” should also be the title of her first sex tape.
This preoccupation with getting a reality show is disheartening, but it is also an extreme symptom of a wacked out cultural mindset that is, like, everywhere.
Commodification– Why do it if it can’t be transmitted into some kind of currency? Be it money or social currency. Don’t keep that amusing thought to yourself, make sure you post it on Twitter so you get your cleverness points. Why write for yourself when you can write for everybody? Why hone your art, whatever it is, into something you really believe in instead of spending half your time self-promoting as so many young musicians, artists, filmmakers seem to do.
I don’t know. Henry Darger wrote and illustrated a 15,000 page epic that was only discovered years after he died, and as far as we know he never showed it to anybody. He was also insane, so there’s that. Back in the day, people like Bob Dylan and Patti Smith had to show us that it was OK to put ourselves out there and share what we love, break from social mores and all that, but these days I feel like somebody needs to remind us that we are worth more.
I think you have good points, though I also like for people to laugh at my funny comments, so I am slightly shamed.
I think the problem is not in wanting to share your good works with people: Art and literature and music are for the seeing, reading and listening. The real problem is perhaps the commodification/monetization of experience. But then again, Thoreau went to Walden and then sold books about it, so maybe it is both somethign we’ve always done and something that doesn’t have to be a problem.
Perhaps we would feel better about the junk if we knew that from time to time something real and moving came out of it. The only moving and real reality television I can think of was the season of Project Runway with Sweet Pea on it. That was some high quality stuff.