Barbara Ehrenreich The Worst Years Of Our Lives Summary

The passage from Barbara Ehrenreich’s “The Worst Years of Our Lives” claims that the characters in TV shows don’t do the regular normalities we really do in life, which is watch TV. This point coincides with the idea of TV not portraying the real world, which is true. But because the events that could happen are overdramatized, it takes away the reality and truth of what could really happen in our everyday lives. That is the reason why I must disagree with her. Two of Ehrenreich’s assertions are that we never see characters on a show just sit there and watch TV for hours on end and that doing anything we see requires getting up from the couch. However, on Spongebob Squarepants Patrick Star is seen in many episodes just sitting in his chair …show more content…
This is true because whatever is on a show or a movie is far from what can truly happen in reality. I’m not saying that it can’t (ie a zombie apocalypse, the life of a foster family, trying to be popular at school, or a teenage pregnancy), but with all the glitz and glam of Hollywood, who’s to tell what is real and what is fake. What it is is a hybrid of truth and Hollywood. For instance, the popular summer series, MTv’s Finding Carter. As a very young child she was kidnapped and raised as the kidnapper’s daughter. One day she finds out her mother isn’t who she says she is and Carter is basically thrown into the life of her true family. In a situation like this one, a kidnapping like this can actually happen and that person feels out of place where they are now. That is the reality of the …show more content…
She spends all her time trying to find Carter’s kidnapper instead of trying to get to know her daughter who she hasn’t seen in fourteen years. That is the Hollywood. Of course, any parent would want the person who held their child captive to be caught but the thought of trying to regain the lost time would be way more practical--more believeable really.
If shows and clips on TV are too dangerous, how does Ehrenreich account for the countless shows that are centered around video clips where people hurt themselves? Those are the people who try to have their fifteen minutes of fame or do it to get money. Some of these contributors are Ridiculousness, World’s Dumbest, YouTube, America’s Funniest Home Videos and sheer boredom and stupidity. Boredom itself can lead from fun to catastrophe faster than Garfield can eat Lasagne. Then, when someone adds a group of kids plus money or the chance of being on TV into the mix, it makes it twice as