RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:
From the story of a literary star to one of a reality TV star, Mike Rowe, host of the television show "Dirty Jobs," quietly announced last month that his show has been cancelled by the Discovery Channel. TV critic Eric Deggans says the trend in reality TV is moving away from the kind of programming Rowe brought to the screen.
ERIC DEGGANS, BYLINE: For eight seasons, Mike Rowe was the guy who dared poke things, go places and do jobs no typically blow-dried TV host would touch.
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DEGGANS: Rowe took TV cameras to the worst occupations you can imagine, inseminating turkeys, castrating lambs and digging up slimy blood worms.
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DEGGANS: But a curious thing happened. Rowe gained serious admiration for people who tackled the ickiest jobs in America.
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DEGGANS: These folks were the best at the worst jobs imaginable, but they found fulfillment in places where others fear to tread, as Rowe noted during a 2008 speech.
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DEGGANS: So what's taking "Dirty Jobs'" place on Discovery?
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DEGGANS: Stuff like this new series, "Amish Mafia."
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DEGGANS: Sounds like a bad "Saturday Night Live" skit that didn't even make the show, but they put it online the next day, anyway. But what would you expect? Discovery also owns TLC, once known as The Learning Channel. And they had a blockbuster hit with another controversial show.
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DEGGANS: "Here Come Honey Boo Boo."
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #2: You're a little fat.
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DEGGANS: This show oozes disdain for its characters.
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DEGGANS: The show subtitles their every word, like the family's thick Southern accents are from another language. And its attitude has spread across a chunk of so-called reality TV shows. Let's call it the Honey Boo Boo-ification of nonfiction television. Out goes a show that honors hard work and solid values, and in comes programs which play like televised freak shows.
On "Dirty Jobs," Mike Rowe encouraged the audience to admire working-class heroes doing jobs no one else would. "Honey Boo Boo" invites its audience to look down on its starts. It makes them the butt of an inside joke every viewer's encouraged to laugh at. Sad as it is to see "Dirty Jobs" ushered off to cancellation, Mike Rowe and his crew might be getting out just in time.
MONTAGNE: Eric Deggans: He's a TV and media critic for the Tampa Bay Times, and also author of "Race-Baiter: How the Media Wields Dangerous Words to Divide a Nation." Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.