I know I’ve already condemned Jimmy Kimmel, TV’s most revolting and successful fick , this year, and I wish that was enough. I don’t like even thinking about the man; it depresses me profoundly that a major network pays millions to such a miserable human being to be such a miserable human being. Jimmy is a proud ethics corrupter, an advocate of parents making their children cry so they can get a sliver of fame—infamy, really—on YouTube and Jimmy’s late night show on ABC. Disney owns ABC. Disney. Disney pays this smug, cruel man to urge parents to make their children miserable for big laughs.
Think about it.
I have to revisit this asshole-blight on the culture, however, because this morning I watched supposedly lovable News Babe Robin Meade on HLN this morning as she showed some of the segments from the video above and laughed hysterically, along with everyone in her studio. The idea, Jimmy’s idea, after he decided to scotch the concept of asking parents to punk their toddlers by telling them that grandma was dead (just speculating here), is for parents to tell their beloved children that Mom and Dad had eaten all of their Halloween candy, and record their reactions. It’s sooooo funny! The little kids wail! They weep! They fall on the ground in abject grief! Robin couldn’t stop laughing. Child abuse is so hilarious.
Jimmy has proven that.
He’s also proven that a shocking number of parents and ABC viewers have the ethical instincts of the Marquis De Sade.
WARNING! Tangential Interjected Political Digression Follows!
This is the state of our culture. NBC’s Billy Bush gets condemned, shamed, shunned and fired for participation in Donald Trump piggery that actually harmed nobody, and Jimmy Kimmel gets millions from DISNEY for openly promoting child abuse. (“Oh, but it’s just a little child abuse! All in good fun!” Are you really going to argue that?)
You know who else is a Jimmy fan? Hillary Clinton—you know, the candidate who “has spent her whole career fighting for children” and against child abuse?—has appeared on Jimmy’s show twice this year. She wants children “to meet their full potential,” which is apparently assisted by having videos of them on YouTube forever showing them being publicly humiliated by their parents because a jackass told them to. She doesn’t find Jimmy Kimmel repulsive, or his treatment of kids either, at least while he can help her con America.
To be fair, it isn’t as if such hypocrisy by Hillary isn’t consistent; she also enables Bill while claiming to revile even talking about sexual assault. There is integrity in that. Right?
Tangential Digression Concluded
(Well, almost…)
I don’t want to waste more time repeating myself on this topic. It’s clear so few Americans have functioning ethics alarms that my pointing out what should be obvious won’t make a difference. It would have made a difference if Hillary Clinton, instead of yukking along with a child abuser—you know, like yukking along with a misogynist?—confronted him on his show, thus saving hundreds of kids from future abuse. That would have won support AND been the right thing to do.
Nah.
Anyway, here is how I ended the post when I first spelled out what’s wrong with Jimmy’s child-abusing hi-jinks in 2011. Somebody send it to Hillary.
In case any of those mega-jerks who took Jimmy’s advice to torture their own flesh and blood for laughs are reading and puzzled, here is what is ethically wrong with the exercise:
- It is dishonest. Lying to one’s child is rarely justified; lying to one’s child to upset the child is irredeemably wrong.
- It is cruel. Obviously. These children are not old enough to get the “joke.” Inflicting emotional pain on a child for the fun of it—the fun of it!—is the essence of conscience-free behavior.
- It is a betrayal. Parents have a duty to protect young children from people like Jimmy Kimmel, who think they are mere props for their own pleasure, not aid and abet such individual’s warped schemes.
- It is a breach of the child’s privacy. It is wrong to put any child’s actions on YouTube before the child is old enough to understand the implications of being exposed to millions of strangers, forever.
The use of YouTube to humiliate children has got to stop; it’s not fair, and it’s not funny. As for Jimmy Kimmel, he should be ashamed of himself, but won’t be. Sociopaths—the kind of people who enjoy torturing kids—are like that.
Ethics Alarms 
Ugh. It makes me sick. , I didn’t agree with this behavior before having kids, and now with kids and seeing just how much a kid feels betrayed or cheated or actually harmed for the slightest denial of a demand it makes me even angrier.
They don’t know any better. All they know are a few base savage reactions and the goal of a parent is to mold their little barbarians into functioning civilized adults. When our 3 year old lost his mind that we told him he couldn’t have Halloween candy for breakfast I was half annoyed and half embarrassed FOR him because he *doesn’t know any better*…. and it’s our role to get him to know better.
Intentionally betraying trust does nothing towards chiseling away the barbarian and sculpting the citizen.
“Intentionally betraying trust does nothing towards chiseling away the barbarian and sculpting the citizen.”
Sincere thanks, Tex, for another “quotable” among many I have gleaned from this blog and saved, written by Jack and his commenters. I actually go back and re-read them from time to time; that’s when they start to REALLY help (or hurt) – and I mean this: right up there with Bible verses.
Hi Jack, I agree with your discussion of mr. Kimmel, except I’m not sure about your suggestion to mrs. Clinton: confront him on his show.
Plenty of times you have berated people who stepped outside of the (sometimes implied) contract to deliver a rogue message they found important.
I could see your point and at the same time, in some cases I could empathize with the person who stepped out of bounds.
What’s rogue about it? Her choice is to not appear on the show, so as not to enable and endorse this creep, or do her job. Is there an implied agreement by a guest not to raise uncomfortable topics? Jimmy Fallon was attacked for not confronting Donald Trump, which he certainly could do. I don’t say that Hillary should scream at him or denounce him. Guests surprise hosts all the time—that’s what makes shows interesting. What would be wrong about her saying,
“While I’m here, Jimmy, I want to raise one thing, and I hope you don’t mind. As you know, I’ve spend a career defending children, and I wonder if, as a favor but also because its right, you would stop asking parents to make their children cry so you can laugh at the kids misery. You must know that that this is cruel and wrong. I’m a bit surprised that so many parents don’t realize that, but as a mother and a child advocate, I’m telling you and them: it is. What do you say?”
This isn’t like a singer engaging in a National Anthem protest, which is a breach of trust. This would be a pure utilitarian win.
Thanks. It’s much clearer for me.
As usual, thanks for prompting the clarification. It was necessary.
Jack, everything is a transaction to politicians like HRC. Its all about what she will sacrifice for positive exposure. As long as Kimmels skits attract audiences and she can glom onto his popularity she will sacrfice the needs of kids. Women’s choice overrides the life of viable children because women vote the unborn cannot.
Remember, every choice she makes, every life she obliterates, every lie she states is all for her greater good. That makes it all Ok.
Mr Marshall. I am a long time reader of your blog. I have learned many things from you and your replies. Even when I disagree with your position it makes me rethink why I believe the way I do. So thank you. To you and your readers.
I’m writing to ask permission to post this post on my Facebook page. I’d like all my friends to read this..
Thank you.
Ruth Wagnon
>
Of course. And thanks for commenting.
Ruth,
I would suggest that you also create a link to this blog so your viewers will learn of a quality site for opinion on issues and behavior.
One Saturday morning, our daughter and son were in our daughter’s room and decided they should see who could get to the front yard first. Our daughter headed out the bedroom door and down the hallway toward the living room and the front door while her wisenheimer little brother decided to take a short cut. Sliding open the bedroom window, he climbed over the decorative (so-called) security bars and plopped to the ground, just in time to see the curling finger of the officer in the police cruiser that had just glided to a stop in front of our house. Our daughter evaporated into the house. I was watching TV football in our “Arizona” room when there was a loud knock at the back/kitchen door, which we never locked. “Come in,” I yelled. More knocking. Annoyed, I got off the couch and headed down the back door hallway and saw the door’s window framing my son’s panic-stricken face in front of a police officer’s head and uniformed shoulders. I opened the door. y son’s eyes were as big as saucers, well, they were always big, so I guess they were even bigger than saucers. By this time, there was a bit of smile on the officer’s face as he asked if I knew “this young man.” “Never seen him before in my life, officer,” I dead-panned. “DAAAD!” my son blurted before bursting into tears. The officer chuckled, removed his hands from my son’s shoulders and returned to his cruiser.
Child abuse?
But there is something to what Kimmel does though. A certain level of humor within the confines of a family or other small tight knot group of the type of humor that guides people to not take themselves so seriously or to realize the value of a little humility is not necessarily a bad thing.
The kickers are, first, how is this humor handled? Is it intentionally set up to really razz someone’s nerves or with malicious and cruel intent (like what Kinmel urges)? Or i it spur of the moment and contingent on pure accident (like your episode)? Or is it a relatively tame set up that isn’t designed to severely upset someone?
Second, how “inside the group” is the humor kept? Kimmel obviously breaks this wide open by making the cruelty appear on national television. Even if his pranks were mild and not truly upsetting pranks, the scope of the humiliation tips the balance by itself. Kept within a tight knit group such as family, the protection from publication of that humiliation further strengthens bonds of trust (in my opinion). Granted as life goes on you may realize that the individual doesn’t mind talking about the situation any more and you could share it (such as your episode).
What do you think?
I’d like to think you’re right. Reading the post and then recalling the Saturday morning episode, I suffered a real pang of guilt. But I did take comfort from the two things you discuss: it was not contrived and no one saw it other than the family and the officer.
Probably to a fault, I always treated our kids as human beings rather than just little kids, not that I didn’t treat them like kids when they acted like kids and not in a good way. My Irish Catholic mother and her sisters would always tell great family anecdotes after holiday dinners. They had guy cousins who were notorious jokers and teasers. I seem to have gotten a little of that.
Any comment on this?