I was pleased but alarmed to see that MTV has picked up a few episodes of "How's Your News?" a news show made by people with developmental disabilities. I first heard about How's Your News? from an episode of This American Life, where they pointed out that you rarely hear directly from people with developmental disabilities. You hear about them, not from them. MTV's HYN looks like it will have a reality TV-like setup, so probably by using devices like video diaries, we'll hear from HYN's reporters directly. Says MTV's website about the show:
Our 6 episode series has the adventurous spirit of Jackass, combined with the music and quirky comedy of The Monkees.
On the one hand, I'm pretty impressed that they would compare HYN to Jackass, showing a level of comfort with difference that many can't seem to muster when it comes to developmental disabilities. The stars of HYN are different than most of the people who will watch, but this implies that potential audience discomfort isn't going to get in the way of HYN having a sense of humor.
On the other, I fear for what typical viewers of MTV would think of HYN, and especially what they might call it, colloquially.
On the third hand, if the show were horribly insulting, I doubt that its stars would have given it the ok for airing. I'll admit that I have in the past been very impressed by MTV shows like True Life and Made.
Does the fact that you have three hands qualify you to be on the show?
Posted by: Sir Charles | January 27, 2009 at 09:38 PM
I would HIGHLY recommend the documentary that introduced me to How's Your News. It's really a great film, very moving, and the opposite of exploitative (which I assume MTV will manage to do).
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0298917/
The other great thing is that Chetro (the former lead singer of Dispatch) helped out a lot with the org that created the idea for HYN, and appears in the film, but isn't given (and evidently didn't seek) credit. He's just a friend of one of the moviemakers, and traveled around with the anchors of their traveling news RV.
Honestly, highly recommended.
Searching around for links, I ran across an evident sequel, shot in 2004 at the Conventions. Amazing stuff that shows you a piece of what they did in the original.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0K_2bXmIVOo
Posted by: rk | January 27, 2009 at 10:53 PM