Going through the DSTV channels on a lazy Sunday afternoon i stumbled across The Contender. The Contender is a reality TV show based around boxing. However many fighters that couldn't cut it on their own in the world of boxing have been thrown together in a house to train and compete against one another for a shot at some title or another. That's not really important. At the end of each episode two boxers go head to head in a five round fight where one of them loses and is eliminated.

The shocking part of this little story is that at these fights families are present. Now I'm not talking about brother, father, mother family. The family present at the fight on this evenings show were children, the boxers children, with their mothers/grandmothers watching over them.

What message are we teaching our children by sending them to a boxing ring containing their fathers? The one little girl (maybe 10 years old) was shouting, jumping, screaming waving her arms yelling at/for/with her father to either kick the other boxers ass or for her father not to have his ass kicked. He lost, she cried, looked dissapointed and upset that her father had lost. This child had just witnessed her father take a voluntary beating in the name of money and was upset that he lost.

Look, I've never seen my father get a butt whoopin' and I'm still pretty messed up. Imagine what this child is going to grow up believing in later in her life. It's ok to solve problems through violence. Violence is ok when it's for monetary gain. My father did it so why can't I?

I just think that it is absolutely horrific that this is what we as viewers have become. We are willing to see people eat things, beat people, fight, scream, cheat, deface love all in the name of ratings on a TV show. It's not for me.

Labels: Boxing, Society, Sport