BEFORE there was fake reality TV – in the guise of famous, infamous, and desperate-to-be-famous families cooking up phony drama and unfunny situations to make their scary, boring lives inside their glass houses look interesting – there was real life in the form of documentaries.
And there still is. Good never goes out of style.
Bad-taste shows like “Chasing Farah,” “Family Bonds,” “The Gastineau Girls” and “Growing Up Gotti,” for starters – and enders – do go out of style and off the air sooner or later.
Watching these shows even once was enough to make you swear off marriage and its inevitable consequence, TV-watching, forever.
But legit documentary-style programs about real-life families – such as MTV’s “True Life” – will get you right back in front of the old TV where you belong.
This week’s riveting “True Life: I Have Gay Parents” is a realistic look into what it’s like to come of age in the first generation of two-mommy and two-daddy families.
Tonight’s show focuses on three teens:
* One is an adorable, adopted young woman, Hope, who grew up on Staten Island with two dads. Yes, both are called “Dad.”
* Another is Aidan, a girl from Richmond, Va., whose mother was impregnated by her then-boyfriend, who ran off as soon as he found out she was pregnant. Mom found true love with another woman who has raised Aidan as her own. Yes, both are called “Mom.”
* The third kid is Cooper, a young man who grew up in Berkeley, Calif., and is now a freshman in Iowa. His “two mommies” are life partners who made a decision 19 years ago that one of them would become pregnant by a sperm donor.
The sperm donor, surprisingly, agreed to allow the child to contact him when he or she turned 18, if the kid so desired. Yikes!
Each of these three young people is dealing with a family crisis.
Hope is going off to college – Wesleyan – for a freshman-orientation weekend. Her two dads are worse than hens when it comes to protecting her. They try their best to let their little chickie fly the coop, but are worried to death.
“Last time you went there, you said you were cold. Is your sleeping bag warm enough?”
Classic mom behavior, it’s just so unexpected when it comes from dads.
Aidan, whose mothers are very butch and don’t own dresses for the most part, has picked up their style, but now it’s time for her to go prom-dress shopping – with them!
Cooper, as you might have guessed, makes the decision to contact his biological sperm-donor dad.
Following these very nice, very well-balanced kids through the struggles of life is great TV. For one thing, it points out that it’s not your parents’ sexuality that matters as much as how they treat you.
A child who is loved unconditionally, who is given boundaries within reason and whose parents are courageous in their beliefs – whatever those beliefs are – without drumming it into their kids’ heads, turn out to be the kinds of kids we all would like to call our own.
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“True Life: I Have Gay Parents”
[***] (Three stars)
Tonight at 10 on MTV
