Dr. Phil Chronicles: Episode 6 - Life Imitates Art
Posted June 13th, 2008 in All, Books, Celebrities, Commentary, Dr. Phil Chronicles, Entertainment, TV Moment of the Weak and Weekend FluffINTEGRITY:
I broke down and watched Dr. Phil today, because it has been that kind of week. (I admit it. I’m a smugaholic. I’m not proud.) Whenever I tune in to the king of smug I’m always afraid I might hit on one of those smarmy “giveaway” episodes Oprah made so popular, but lady fortune must have taken pity on me. Today was the second episode of a Special Two Part Series, and everyone knows that when Dr. Phil can’t fit all of his copious amounts of smug into one episode, someone’s goin’ down. Booyah.
I was not disappointed. The good doctor decided to get in between a former high school student who accuses his teacher of molesting him, and the teacher who denies everything, because why not drag this situation out into the spotlight for everyone to share? It becomes clear pretty quickly that whatever happened wasn’t good, but it wasn’t necessarily what the student said had happened, which brought to mind my favorite playwright, Mr. David Mamet. Mamet once wrote a play called Oleanna, a scathingly honest look at the role sexual politics plays in generating conflict which tends to get out of hand. The play itself was written in response to the Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill scandal, and the film version, being directed by Mamet, manages to capture the play’s tension on a movie set fairly well. Both versions provide a damning illustration of the way minor, but vital, political differences in communication between the sexes can bring a manageable situation to spiral entirely beyond everyone’s control.
On the other hand, who needs scathing honesty when we have Dr. Phil to sort out it all out for us? (Even if he does need two episodes to do it.) Dr. Phil decided to handle this complicated and emotionally-charged situation by sicking his pet FBI agent (you remember) on the student and raking him across a lie detector test, which indicated deception. Since lie detectors have NEVER let Dr. Phil down, he basically tossed the results into a cage match between the two “guests,” and then spent four whole minutes finishing the show by talking about how much the Dr. Phil show loves teachers and respects teachers and thinks that teachers don’t make enough money (totally relevant) and did I mention how teachers are the greatest thing since god created smug? So clearly, that fixes everything. Now we can all go on about our little smug-free lives. I think I speak for everyone on the show when I say nicely handled, doc. No wonder Oprah keeps you around.
