Identity Is Fun, but Too Much Skin

I really love family shows when it comes to television. And so that often leads me and my family to watch a lot of reality TV and game shows. I know that they aren't the best type of family television entertainment, but of the choices lately, it's about all that I have.

Friday nights are one night when usually the kids and I can sit down and spend an hour or two watching television together before bed. And this has meant that we watch a lot of Identity. I don't think that it is a great show, and I honestly though that Penn Jillette would do a lot better hosting. We watch, however, for the most part because it is family-friendly.

If you haven't seen the show, basically the contestant is supposed to match 12 identities (from a doctor to a horseback rider, or an Olympic Gold Medalist to a mortician) with 12 strangers standing on a stage. Sometimes is really obvious, like when the the identity is a clown and one of the people is actually wearing a red nose. However, as the identities are narrowed down, it can often get harder.

The nice thing about this is you can play along. You can make your educated (or sometimes not-so-educated) guess, and then be embarrassed or take bragging rights depending on your accuracy. I have hid my head in shame several times.

I have one big problem with this show, however. This show has too much skin. It seems that every female stranger has to be in either a bikini or strapless, naval revealing outfit.

Sure it has provided me with excellent opportunities to talk to my children about modesty. But it really is getting to be too much.

If the bikini or skimpy outfit is directly related to their identity, then I can understand it (sort of), but when a missionary, preschool teacher, and morticians apprentice are all in bikinis, I just have to wonder if this isn't just blatant pandering to the perverts in the male audience.

Let's try to keep family friendly television to at least some level of decency. Between the poor hosting by Jillette and the immodesty, I don't suspect that this show has much of a future.

Labels: Identity, Television, TV

posted by Anonymous @ Saturday, April 28, 2007