Steve Wilkos: Can We Please Talk About This?

I need to have a chat with you about Steve Wilkos. I admittedly, during a dry spell of no job, turned on his show. When I got up to go to the bathroom I noticed that the fear and anguish I had been displaying on my face during the show was still there when I washed my hands. I realized in that moment that there is something disturbingly wrong with television. I mean I've known that television has some really bad shows for a long time but this was sort of beyond bad. This was catastrophically damaging real people.

Apparently Mr. Wilkos joined Jerry Springer's security staff for a show about the KKK (ironically. I wonder if his head was shaved to skin at that time.) From there he married a Springer show producer. They now have two kids and a deal at NBC Chicago Tower for the Steve Wilkos show-a show that brings on low economic trash and Steve stands one inch from their face and berates them to pieces. This tactic is not limited to just name calling. He will sometimes scare them to death and in many instances they've walked off the show while he screams, like a 12 year old girl, "fine, leave, I don't care." It's entertaining....like Springer...but only for a while.

When you start to realize that Wilkos is fucking crazy you are not entertained anymore.

On the episode I saw a young hispanic man was being accused of child molesting. He kept saying he didn't do it. The only evidence Wilkos had that he did do it was his family members thinking he did it. Regardless of whether he did it or not, it was making me physically sick how Wilkos was calling him a piece of shit over and over. The guy looked completely in shock and scared and started crying. Wilkos didn't stop.

Having been a former police officer, why didn't Wilkos just call the police when the family made the claim? Oh, yeah, ratings. Wilkos needs his ratings.

At the end of that show Wilkos addressed some emails he had received. One person wrote him and told him they thought what he was doing was inhumane and it wasn't right way to handle such sensitive material. Steve responded to that email by saying "Then don't watch my show jackass."

His show continues because there are other low class people that sit at home and get their jollies watching others get yelled at while they drink their own forties and beat their own children. Sorry, I'm stereotyping, but when it comes to this shit, it's inevitible.

I imagine that Wilkos is that typical male-holding a lot anger and not knowing how to harness it. He was once in the marines and now uses those marine like tactics to 'save the world'. His intention might (and that's a big might) be to help people, but he is not progressing anything by just putting more angry energy back out there. And some people can't be saved. But I think he knows that. He's just mad at them and needs a stage to express it. It takes more energy to hang onto anger. I wonder why Steve is holding on to his so badly? Anger is just a disguise.