Taking Reality To The Dogs

Snowflake is a bad dog. In disregard of her name, she does not drift or glide or settle gracefully onto people’s knees. Snowflake skitters around like a possessed dust mop, baring her icicle teeth at anything in the way. Judi, the female half of Snowflake’s ownership, is often in the way. Judi sleeps on Snowflake’s side of the bed, occupies Snowflake’s cushion on the couch, and -- worst of all -- cuddles up to Snowflake’s male owner, Malcom. Malcom also happens to be Judi’s husband. Small detail (one might say, snowflake-sized). Judi’s hands show the consequence of Snowflake’s wrath. They are completely gnawed. Most unattractive for national television! Most unbecoming for caressing Malcom! Snowflake wears a jeweled collar.

“Dog Whisperer” is my new Friday-night staple. At 7 p.m. (8 p.m. Eastern), journal articles get pushed under the couch, gray hoodie is pulled on, and Cesar Millan has my attention. Cesar is the eponymous Whisperer -- the guy who melts Snowflake’s icy, cold heart. Only, Cesar doesn’t call Snowflake a “bad dog.” He doesn’t call Judi and Malcom bad owners either, though clearly they’ve given Snowflake several ill-deserved liberties. Cesar instructs Judi and Malcom on how to stare down their alpha female. (That’s National Geographic Channel lingo. In FOX terms, how to “out-bitch their bitch.”) “You must be the pack leader,” Cesar is fond of saying. Judi and Malcom, both thin and 70ish, do not look like pack leaders. They look like the sort of grandparents who own garden gnomes. This doesn’t bother Cesar. On his show, anyone can be a pack leader.

It’s reality television, the way most of us want reality to be -- gentle, not harsh. When Cesar punishes Snowflake, he firmly picks her up by the back of the neck. “I’m not hurting her,” he assures Judi and Malcom. “This is the way her mother would discipline her.” On “Dog Whisperer,” dogs are treated like, well, dogs. They’re treated the way dogs should be treated. Loved, not coddled. Held in check, not abused. Secondary to humans, but not second-rate animals.

Simon Cowell, take note.

Critics of “American Idol” have accused its judges of treating contestants like dogs. These naysayers should be invited to spend time with Cesar. “Dog Whisperer” fans know that Cowell and colleagues don’t give canine handling to their pop-star hopefuls. It’s much, much worse.

I have watched “American Idol” since its second season, but I try to skip the auditions segment. For “Idol” producers, auditions are the freak show that precedes the talent show. It’s evident to anyone who tunes in -- the point isn’t so much to “find a winner” as to ridicule America’s losers. The fat, the freckled, the too short or tall, kids whose ears stick out or eyes bulge, preps, stoners, jocks, drama queens. Picture middle school, where the in-crowd is a trio of clever multi-millionaires. Audience of thousands, of course.

This season, the locker-stuffing is particularly hard core. Cowell called one teen a “bush baby,” in reference to the kid’s lemur-sized peepers. Zing! Next up: a tubby guy with a lisp. “I think you’re wearing Randy’s pants,” Cowell snickered, elbowing fellow judge Randy Jackson. Zap! See you fifth period!

Well, middle school is “reality,” too. And nobody forces the outcasts onto our small screens. They’re “asking for it.” That seems to be the argument of Cowell, and of FOX. Recently, they received support from an unlikely source: the equivalent of getting a go-ahead from the school principal. Psychologist Jennifer Crocker, respected among my higher-ups for her research on social stigma and self-esteem, defends Cowell in this Newsweek interview. Though she concedes that his criticisms are sometimes “harsh,” she speculates that “most of the contestants probably rebound fairly quickly.” It’s namby-pamby Paula Abdul who’s the cold-hearted snake, Crocker states. “Simon is more supportive of people because he is willing to tell them the truth.”

So, take your pink slips and go back to class, kids! No problems here!

I came across this Newsweek interview while reading an article by Crocker and Connie Wolfe (2001) in Psychological Review. For once, the non-academic literature was harder to digest. In the Psychological Review piece, Crocker and Wolfe postulate a model for self-esteem, based on “contingencies of self-worth.” The idea is that people feel good about themselves for various reasons -- they’re popular, or good at math, or crackerjack on the basketball court, etc. Self-esteem is only “contingent” on feedback in these areas. If you tell me I’m lousy at tetherball, I’m likely to shrug it off. Sports ability is (thankfully) not central to my self-concept. But if you diss this post, well, we’ll need to have words.

Self-esteem isn’t exactly the Paula Abdul of psychological endowments. Usually, it can withstand an attack. For people with healthy self-esteem, insult to a contingency provokes a dismissal of the feedback source (“Eff you, Simon!”), redoubling the validity of the contingency (“I really can sing!”), or providing an excuse for failure (“I was nervous!”). Self-esteem is “resilient,” Crocker explains in Newsweek. “I really do think you can construe the criticism as a gift.”

A gift. Hmmm. Public flogging! Just what I always wanted!

I’ll give this to Jennifer Crocker -- she has been out of grad school for awhile, so she has no reason to procrastinate with hours of reality tv. Maybe she hasn’t actually seen the “Idol” episodes on which she theorizes. Perhaps she’s engrossed in SPSS while Cowell and friends systematically tear down every contingency these teenagers might hold dear. Because it isn’t just the singing that gets scorned. Contestants with acceptable levels of self-worth might recover from assaults on their vocalizing. (Let’s not think about those who are less sure of themselves.) But “American Idol” goes for the jugular, if it sticks out in an unattractive way. Or the pigeon toes. Or the zebra-pattern shirt. No contingency is safe, and America gets to watch as squared young shoulders slump lower...and lower. Please, Dr. Crocker, switch to National Geographic. I’ll meet you there.