Niki stormed across the stage, her leopard print tube top and fishnets straining to contain her folds of flesh. She made obscene gestures and screamed curses at the frenzied audience. While she paced, her teenage daughter Tara, the antithesis of her mother, save her coke-bottle glasses and snout, sat quietly on the stage. Tara had just been the victim of one of the infamous "surprises" of The Jerry Springer Show, and wasn’t feeling well. She had learned on national television, in front of the jeering audience, that her mom was sleeping with her boyfriend, Jared, who also sat on stage. The topic of the day was "Mothers Who Steal Boyfriends From Daughters," and the show was on a roll.

The audience gleefully taunted, "B****! B****! B****!" as Niki prowled. Her sexuality was as defiant as it was revolting. "He wanted a woman with more experience," she said with a sneer to her daughter. "I guess you wasn’t good enough!"

"Whore! Whore! Whore!" the crowd chanted.

Niki bragged, Tara wept, and I watched it all while eating a bean and cheese burrito.

Then came infamous Surprise #2, but this time the gag was on Niki. Springer, the host and ringleader of this circus, introduced Niki’s twin sister, Teri. She was equally stuffed into attire that matched Niki’s, and after her grand entrée into the soiree proclaimed that she, too, had been sleeping with Jared. The crowd went bananas.

"Twin B****es! Twin B****es! Twin Whores! Twin Whores!" they screamed as they jumped up and down merrily. The obese twins circled and snarled at each other like Jr. Highers in a schoolyard. Tara wept, and I watched it all while eating a bean and cheese burrito.

The Jerry Springer Show is one of many shows featuring real people, who put the most appalling and intimate details of their lives on display in front of millions of people. And while Springer may be on the extreme of the genre, his style and gimmicks are common. A recent "Paternity" episode of The Ricki Lake Show featured DNA tests for teenage boys, who waited on stage to find out if they were fathers. The audience was rapt with attention when Riki opened the envelope revealing that Stephen (age 15), was the father of an 16-month old baby boy. The bouncing baby was placed in Stephen’s lap while the camera caught his every facial tic.

Television shows like The Jerry Springer Show, Ricki Lake, Howard Stern and Maury Povich are one branch of "reality" TV programming that regularly feature people airing their dirty laundry. Other shows, like MTV’s The Real World, Survivor, and the new series, Boot Camp, specialize in featuring "normal" people in extreme situations. All could fall under the broader category – Voyeur TV. They allow us to watch "real" people, and see the intimate and/or vulnerable moments of their lives. Voyeur TV is some of the most popular programming on television today.

Critics lament the immorality of Voyeur TV, and the seemingly insatiable and indiscriminate desire of viewers to watch the shows. Some even criticize those who produce the shows. But the producers point to the popularity of their programs as evidence that they are merely supplying a demand, and that the shows are "victimless." After all, people volunteer to be on the programs, no one forces them to put themselves in these situations.

But Voyeur TV is not victimless. In fact, in an ironic twist, the shows may be more detrimental to the viewers than to the real people who star. Jerry Springer, Ricki Lake, even Survivor and The Real World appeal to viewers for many reasons; they’re smutty, sensational and seditious. But another component they share, regardless of the topic d’ jour, is that they are a compelling form of dramatic irony. Dramatic irony has long been popular in tragedy. In the Oedipus cycle, for example, the audience knows that Oedipus’s acts are tragic mistakes long before he recognizes his own errors. Shakespeare also features characters unable to understand the implications of their actions, even though they are obvious to the audience or reader. But there’s a major difference in the dramatic irony of classic tragedy and that of Voyeur TV. In Oedipus and Shakespeare, dramatic irony is used to refine audiences by teaching them something about themselves or the human condition through the folly of the "blinded" character. In Voyeur TV, there is no such refinement or enlightenment. Instead, while the people on stage are debased, the audience enjoys the privilege of passing judgment.

Part of the appeal of Voyeur TV is that viewers are the ones who "get it" while watching characters who so obviously don’t. We relish seeing ourselves as superior to the people we watch on TV (the Springer audience makes this shamefully obvious). Herein lies the problem, because easily passed judgments handicap our willingness to relate to people on Voyeur TV and disable our empathy and compassion. The coarsening of individuals polarizes people and has a negative effect on society.

In accessing Voyeur TV, one question we have to ask is: On what level of reality are we able to know the people who are being presented to us as "real?" A friend of mine, Emily, seriously considered trying out for MTV's The Real World. She decided against it, because, after calculating the camera would be on her for 4320 hours (24/7 for 6 months), she realized that they would edit her material to about 2 hours of broadcast time (based on the number of episodes, dividing air time equally among all house guests). This would allow the producers at MTV to choose 2 hours of footage over those 4320 hours to present The Real World character, "Emily" to the national audience. Naturally, these decisions would be made according to the desires and needs of the producers (likely to be marketing demographics and sensationalism) and not Emily. By choosing any 2 hours, producers could make "Emily" look however they wanted. Viewers would never get to know the real Emily. In reality, the "real" people, as they are presented on television, aren’t real at all. We don’t know the context of their lives and we can’t understand their perspective because we don’t get to see it. Bottom line – Voyeur TV doesn’t have time for us to get to know real people, so it highlights, or exploits, their more distinguishable character traits so that viewers can easily categorize the "characters" in the drama. These aren’t real people, they’re caricatures.

In addition, the context in which we see these people is warped. We watch them at their worst moments, usually – even witnessing them make and explain dreadfully bad decisions, and then defend themselves on the spot. It’s not fair to judge a person’s character based on their worst life decisions ... not even people like Niki and Teri, who volunteer for it. If any of us had the worst affairs of our life publicized we likely wouldn’t fare well in the court of public opinion either.

Whether Voyeur TV characters are actually presented truthfully, or not, they are presented under the pretense of truth. And it’s the pretense of a fair portrayal of real people that allows us to judge them. This judgment is especially blatant in shows that feature live audiences. The audiences on Jerry and Ricki are a vital part of the action, they become a part of the melodrama of heroes and villains that plays out on stage. In addition to taunting Niki and Teri on Springer, the audience robustly lamented Tara’s unfortunate life, "You poor girl, how can you even stand being a part of that family?" And they chastised the twins, "How can you two behave like this? You’re grown women!?" They aren’t often insightful comments, but the crowd always gets its say. And the comments of individual crowd members are usually met with resounding applause. Voyeur TV audiences revel in the right to cast judgment, insult, even defame the names of the characters on stage.

But we must confess that the live audiences on these shows are doing no more than voicing the thoughts of us at home – albeit with the tact of a frenzied mob. In our dorm rooms, living rooms and TV rooms we shake our heads and wonder how people can be so deprave as to engage in such behavior, or we mock the people on stage because they’re so ignorant. "Don’t they know anything?" we wonder. We ask each other, "Can you believe those twins on Springer yesterday?" Voyeur TV makes us feel better about ourselves by holding up grotesque subcultures of humanity, or obnoxious individuals, for public ridicule. We see the tragic irony, while the caricatures who are featured don’t, thus instilling a sick sense of pride in us, reassuring us, subconsciously at least, that no matter how sad our lives may be, at least we’re "better than those losers."

These irony-based ego strokes are detrimental to us for several reasons. First, we see the Nikis and Teris of television as the dregs of society – or at least lower than we are. We’re almost forced to snub them, because if we view them as equals, then that means we might be capable of awful behavior and public humiliation, too. We don’t want to think it possible that we could be the caricatures others are mocking. Thus, we’re happy to accept the characters provided to us by Voyeur TV and view ourselves as superior.

But feelings of superiority don’t encourage compassion or empathy. They provoke us to sneering, laughing or ridiculing. We might even get angry at the people on TV for being such idiots, or worry about the state of our country because of these flawed people. Regardless of how superiority plays itself out in our lives, when we become people who can laugh or get angry at such sadness, we're being deceived by our pride. Such public displays of decadence and ignorance should inspire us to new levels of compassion for people who are flailing to find fulfillment in life.

Voyeur TV’s ego strokes are also harmful because when we compare ourselves morally to those we believe are lower than ourselves, our feelings of superiority don’t encourage honest and humble self-reflection. We point at the speck (OK, two-by-four!) in someone else’s eye, and ignore the plank in our own. Society, being a collection of individuals, becomes increasingly hardened and proud as our moral barometer plummets. If we’re really concerned about morality in our country, we need to focus on allowing our lives to be transformed by the eternal truths of our God and creator, so that we can love our neighbors as ourselves.

There are many reasons for the popularity of Voyeur TV. But as long as the shows subtly manipulate and massage our hubris, we need to be cautious about watching them and not allow them to harden our spirits. We must never forget, even as the tragic irony of Niki, Teri, and Tara unfolds before our eyes, that they – no less than us – are the very people Christ came to rescue.