Two nights ago, I stumbled across a strange bit of television from a link on a blog. Calliope at Creating Motherhood was asking people to watch FX's show 30Days starring Morgan Spurlock and then join her for an online discussion.

The episode sent Kati, a mother against adoption rights for same-sex couples (and, presumably based on her argument, single parents by choice as well) to live for 30 days with Tom and Dennis, a same-sex couple raising 4 children.

In 30 days, despite some excellent evidence showing the contrary, Kati still refused to budge. I sat through an hour of television depicting a lack of change. It was about as interesting as watching an hour-long and ultimately forfeited game of tug-of-war.

It was post-hermeneutical television at its best!

At first you're completely invested in the process but by the time the final few minutes rolled onto the screen and Kati was still sitting at the kitchen table, reminding them for the 400th time that she really doesn't think they should be parents, you start to really reach to figure out the point of the show.

Television is neat and predictable. This is why it's relaxing--you can zone out, knowing exactly when to tune back in if you want to know the big conclusion. But this was television without the big conclusion. This was television where everything was slapped on the screen and nothing was resolved and you walked away saying, "what was the point of that?" Just like real life. Reality television has finally gotten real.

Except that I can be frustrated by closed-minded people in my real life--why would I want to watch one on a screen for an hour?

Truthfully, it was one of the most bizarre and pointless things I've witnessed on television--an hour of following around a stubborn, close-minded person who refused to hear anyone other than herself and repeated the same thoughts ad nauseum. I'm actually keeping the tape I made of the episode and I've decided to show it to my kids when they're older to explain why some behaviours make people not want to be your friend. Which is what I meant about reaching to discover the point of the show. Kati is sort of the perfect example of what not to do if you want to be able to get along with people. She is an afterschool special lesson in the flesh.

Calliope from Creating Motherhood spoke for many when she described the show as an incredible disappointment. Tom and Dennis, a caring set of parents, open their home where they're raising four great kids; children raised by same-sex parents explain that "happy homes breed good children. Unhappy homes don't"; and adults who aged out of the foster care system pointed out that the current system with gay and lesbian adoption already has a glut of children without homes. None of this evidence made a dent in her point of view.

Calliope writes: "How sad and devastating that a program about change and awareness completely missed the mark. Actually, I won’t put it all on the program, but I do think it was really unfortunate that the woman selected to participate was so unyielding and rigid in her beliefs."

Kymberli at I'm a Smart One points out the flaw in close-minded arguments: "It is appalling that certain rights, particularly the rights to wed and parent, are denied on the basis of love. Love is all you need, and if it's there, does who one chooses to love matter?"

Beyond the fact that the show didn't seem to have a point and the main character infuriated the audience, at the heart was another problem--the lack of direction took steps into pure offensiveness. In Dan Savage's column on The Stranger's blog, he highlighted the fact that FX chose to include as one of their experts a spokesperson from the Family Research Council, a Christian right think tank that is vehemently against same-sex adoption (amongst many many other things). The words of this expert was presented as fact without pointing out the FRC's unscientific methods for conducting their research.

Savage writes:

Sprigg’s comments come early in the program and linger like mustard gas over every scene that comes after. A casual viewer may watch Tom and Dennis with their kids and think, “Okay, these guys are decent parents, and maybe their boys are going to be fine… but other kids adopted by other gays might not be so lucky. Other kids might wind up adopted by those gays that abuse kids, and rape them, and worse.”

What was the point? Including the quote from the Family Research Council as an "expert opinion" is sort of like doing a show where a neo-nazi has to live with Jews for 30 days and Goebbels's corpse is resurrected to give some facts and suggestions. Which goes back to the point that FX seemed to vomit this episode onto the screen without guidance or view point or...well...point. What was the point in bringing in quotations from the Family Research Council?

Oh...and I'm not even going to touch on how I felt about Morgan Spurlock's coverage of donor insemination because that would take a whole extra post...

A public and extremely heartfelt thank you to Tom and Dennis, the couple who opened their home to Kati.

Just in case Kati is reconsidering her beliefs after the airing of the episode and needs some good blogs to check out, she could peruse some of my favourites:

Cheese and Whine: Life in Maine with her wife, S, and a whole lot of IVF needles.

Hydrangeas are Pretty: Shelli and Narda raising Malka after domestic adoption.

Bulgy the Blog: David and Wendell's adoption story.

Addition Problems: Jen and Cait are raising a toddler and pregnant again.

Thinking Miracles: Recurrent loss as Heidi tries to build her family.

LizaWasHere: An "unexpectedly southern thirtysomething bibliophile lesbian mommy blogger" (whose expecting again!)

Vee and Jay: Trying to fill that "baby-sized hole" through IVF.

Soulbliss: An incredible woman raising her son and trying to conceive again--all as a single mother by choice.

Melissa is the author of the infertility and pregnancy loss blog, Stirrup Queens and Sperm Palace Jesters. She keeps a categorized blogroll of over 1300 infertility blogs and writes the daily Lost and Found and Connections Abound, a news source for the infertility blogosphere. Her infertility book, The Land of If, is forthcoming from Seal Press in Spring 2009.