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Pop goes the balloon story
Published October 20, 2009
Should anyone really be surprised by the whole, sad overplayed balloon boy drama officials now believe was a hoax?
Think about it, if that mental process still is possible when the subject is American pop culture as expressed and promulgated through the television.
Since television programmers in the last decade have pushed “reality” shows that feature real people often doing unreal things, the often bad-mannered culture of the genre increasingly has soaked into our real reality.
Most recently, we’ve seen this with the water-cooler blather associated with the Jon and Kate Gosselin divorce and national hand-wringing over how all the drama, exposure and spectacle has affected their children. We’ve seen it with deposed Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who has parlayed very serious corruption and influence-peddling into a full-time celebreality existence.
But the case of the Richard Heene family and the “balloon boy” apparent hoax they perpetrated in the quest to sell their reality TV idea reached new heights of cultural sickness.
Heene, his wife, Mayumi, and their children, 6-year-old Falcon and his brothers, 8 and 10, had appeared on reality TV before, on the ABC show “Wife Swap.” After that trip into TV fantasyland, Richard Heene had a vision of his own series based on his family’s adventures. The self-described inventor and UFO researcher, and abject publicity hound, appears to have been planning to sell the balloon boy story to Gawker.com, according to Associated Press reports.
Of course, real monetary gain also had to be a motive for the Heenes, obviously aware that “being famous pays” as they eagerly trotted their brood out before the cameras and media throng.
For law enforcement, emergency responders and volunteers from the community who joined the massive manhunt for young Falcon, this was no joke. It wasted “real” time and effort, pulling them away from vital functions. And for the taxpayers who paid for the expensive operation, it also was no joke, with the efforts costing at minimum tens of thousands of dollars.
Authorities now are considering serious charges against Heene, his wife and perhaps others involved in planning and carrying out the purported hoax. Such charges certainly would be justified if the claims are true. It’s also expected the family will be presented with a bill for all that wasted effort, including National Guard helicopter flights and crews and flights diverted and held up at the nearby Denver airport.
Still, one cannot help but wonder whether, even after all the legal repercussions are paid, the Heenes won’t find a way to use their newfound national celebrity to make out like bandits — turning their story that held the nation emotionally captive into a rich payday.
After all, nowadays, that’s the reality of people and a culture that lacks a conscience.
This editorial was written by Dale Dimitri, copy editor for The Facts.
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