All week long I was excited for television. Why? Channel 4 made a documentary called "My Monkey Baby," about Americans who adopt monkeys and raise them as their own children. Brilliant. I was expecting some sad lonely people and poop throwing but it turned out to be ... well pretty much that, minus the poop throwing.
British television is known for being exploitative in it's reality tv and has been brilliantly parodied by comics - check out The Boy with an Arse for a Face (embedded below). Yep the Brits truly love shows where you can have a "good old stare at the face" but tell it in a way that you can tell yourself it's ok- it's educational.
Embedding of the preview has been disabled but you can see a clips HERE and HERE:
So here's my LIVE BLOGGING of the show.
10:10
These people are deranged.
10:18
15,000 monkeys are living in people’s homes in the USA! Really?
It only costs 4.5 thousand dollars to get a monkey baby. There are dogs that cost more than that. And I’ve been asking my father for years if I could get a monkey? See Dad, it’s really not all that hard.
OMG. They take the babies away from the mothers at just 10 days old. The poor monkey mamas! Some breeders will take the babies away from their mamas after a day! Can you do that? Don’t they let cats have their kittens for 2 weeks?
10:22
The monkeys in this TV doc are named Jenny, Silly Willy, Butter. Of course. But where’s bobo?
These people feed their monkeys sugar candies. Cookies, candies. No! No! No!!! Apparently one monkey doesn’t like bananas. Really? Really?!
Now we’re into the background of these people aka their sob stories- None of these people can have babies of their own. Or their kids have grown up and left them. So of course instead of adopting a needing child from China or something they get a monkey.
“She can run through the house and chair to chair instead of tree to tree. So I think she’s free.” - How freedom has changed.
This is the best part so far. The woman that has 5 monkeys calls an animal physic to see if her monkey ate a pill it wasn’t supposed to eat. She just has an animal physic on speed dial. Of course.
10:32
Yeah- what are hotels policies on monkeys? What if it’s only a baby monkey?
10:38
One family has a pit bull and a mastiff and now they’re bringing home a monkey baby? Jesus! They will eat that monkey baby for a snack. Then there was a shot of the dogs licking its head while the monkey looked into the camera as if to say ‘help me.’
10:46
“Silly willy are you taking your panties off?” If you mean diaper, yes he was. What self respecting monkey wears a diaper, I mean really?
10:49
Its the tragedy of these people’s lives that makes them turn to having monkeys as children. They just want unconditional love. We all do.
10:56
Primates do not like change. They will go a-wall. Hmmm wonder how this will go over in the 20 plus years these people will have their monkey babies.
11:00 pm
What happens when these old people die and the babies outlive their owners? One woman thinks that the monkey will be able to take care of them. As if!
Conclusion:
This program was high on concept but lacking in depth. It’s a freak show on display, I felt for these people and their poor animals, but most of the time my jaw was open in horror of their lives. What about the psychology behind these people? What about the opponents? What about the breeders? Yes, this show captured that slice of life that touches on all of these issues but just came across as freak show. And that's why I loved it.
1 comment:
Sara, I was laughing when I read the title of the spoof, and kept laughing afterwards every time I thought of it! Now, hours later, I finally was able to watch it, and of course it's hilarious. That encapsulates exactly what I remember about British television!
As for the monkeys...I'm disturbed and can't comment. What you wrote about separating them from their mothers is going to make me start crying if I think about it for too long (that's what having a baby does to you). I'm going to watch Ass Face again now...
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