vs. 
On sunday nights in Casa Mia (yes, that's its name! It's even tiled into the house itself!), a battle ensues for the big screen tv in the family room. Dad wants to watch Extreme Makeover, and I want to watch the Simpsons. He gets pretty tiffed off because this apparently shows my lack of compassion for all of humankind.
He once forced me to sit and watch an entire episode of EM. It made me want to remove my eyeballs with a spork.
But I do watch Top Model. It's fair to wonder: isn't Top Model a much less worthy show than EM, where people build massive houses for deserving families?
I think the key problem between these two shows is exhibitionism. Extreme Makeover tastes artificial, creepily planned in order to pull on the heartstrings of a conservative (dare I say Christian?) audience, and thereby to sell lots n' lots of products (for Sears). It feeds on exaggeration and makes a monkey show out of charity.
Look how nice we are! Look at how generous we are! We are so super! Look at these clever little gags we play on each other! Ha! Ha ha! We call each other "gang"! Look at how goofy–and hardworking–Ty Pennington is! He's a Caucasian carpenter that works miracles for worthy people–could he be the reincarnation of the Messiah? Look look look!
What is also a little ironic to me about this show is that two of the designers are clearly gay, and yet half the people they build houses for probably think that they are devil spawn.
EM is Habitat for Humanity on steroids. These houses are unbelievably extravagant. With the materials that went into one house, they could probably build 10 modest houses for other "deserving" families. But remember: the focus is not on sharing the wealth, but rather heaping it onto the chosen few.
That said, are the people on their shows "deserving"? Yes, absolutely. They seem like genuinely nice folks. But the show's insistence on "deserving-ness" seems to involve a judgment that's, well, wrong.
I think EM exemplifies everything that's fucked up about American charity/generosity: sure, there's a lot of it, but we tend to be pretty showy about the giving of it, pretty picky about who gets it, and pretty damn smug about how great we are for doing it.
