Child Exploitation and You: TNA Sinks to a New Low

Model parents? I don't think so.
Photo Credit: TNAWrestling.com

As if this Kurt Angle/Jeff and Karen Jarrett feud couldn't get any worse, the kids have now been injected into it. Yep, they showed a video of the Jarrett residence with four kids all on camera. This may seem innocuous enough before you realize that Jarrett is making them pledge their allegiance to him on camera, presumably as a ploy against Angle. What's even more sickening to me is that the worst is yet to come. According to spoilers, custody of those children is being used as a stipulation in the upcoming blowoff match between Angle and Jarrett.

There are some who feel like there's nothing wrong with this angle. Oh hey, it's helping to make Angle a sympathetic cause to TNA fans! And Bryan Alvarez reported in this week's Figure Four Weekly newsletter that TNA's ratings theorized to be up over the last few weeks and stabilized rather than taking a nosedive after quarter hour 5 because wives and girlfriends are watching to see the conclusion of this angle! It's successful television! Okay, I grant you that. However, at what cost comes this success?

I honestly don't care what anyone is ready to admit, but I can't imagine that the Angle children are comfortable with this. Divorce is a subject that no children take very lightly, and this separation is still relatively fresh in their minds. Again, I will also renew my objection to anything Kurt Angle himself says about being okay with this, because he's rehashing a situation that ended up causing Jeff Jarrett to be exiled from TNA for several months. I mean, are people forgetting this fact or is it willful ignorance?

It also remains to be seen whether ratings remain up after this angle's conclusion or not. If the theories are correct and this spike in ratings is due to the women staying aboard and watching, what's going to happen when this angle is over, and they're left to watch a pro wrestling show that doesn't have a BS Grey's Anatomy angle going on? Will they stay aboard because the wrestling action is good (probably not) or because they like Eric Bischoff's legal circus (I would hope not, but who knows)? It's all about keeping an audience, and TNA is going to have reckoning as to whether they want to have more absurdly personal storylines involving love and relationships on a wrestling program or not.

As for getting Angle over as a sympathetic face, there are a ton other ways to do that without resorting to this cheap, line-blurring personal BS that comes at the expense of his psyche or the mental well-being of his kids. It just feels cheap and crass.

I know that when I become a parent in eight months, I'm not going to want people telling me how to raise my child. Being a parent is a tough gig, but it's one that the parents need to have for themselves. I know these kids belong to the Jarretts and to Angle, so it might seem hypocritical of me to be writing this post. Conversely, shitty parenting is shitty parenting for one, and two, they're throwing this real life horseshit in my face when one of the big reasons I watch wrestling is to escape the real life horrors and watch two guys make up ridiculous or purely athletic quandaries to hash out in the ring while entertainingly building it up out of the ring. This angle for me, and judging by the reaction to it by many online from rank and file fans all the way up to folks like Jim Ross I'm not alone, is not entertaining. It's uncomfortable.

And if I feel this way, imagine how those four kids feel?

Remember you can contact TH and ask him questions about wrestling, life or anything else. Please refer to this post for contact information. He always takes questions!