Enlightened TV shows avoid ‘emotional blackmail’

Many TV shows about illnesses, both dramas and documentaries, turn viewers off because they resort too much on “emotional blackmail.”

The dire medical crises being focused on are made even more pathetic and horrific, until viewers realize that they’re being “played” and cynically exploited, self-defensively switched off.

Last month, however, we were gratified to watch two shows that deftly and judiciously avoided setting that facile emotional trap.

The first was a GMA News TV documentary about a little baby, less than 1 year old, who had a life-threatening liver disease and needed an expensive organ transplant to recover and lead a normal life.

Trouble is, they have to raise several millions of pesos in donations, and there’s a deadline that’s been medically set for the operation.

So, her parents and grandparents have to intensify their Herculean efforts to raise the “impossibly” huge amount, so everyone is on edge, stressed out and emotionally vulnerable.

To the production’s credit, however, it doesn’t exploit their feelings, focusing instead on making viewers understand the gravity of the illness they have to deal with.

Most tellingly of all, the baby’s young mother is the most composed and focused person on-cam, her courage and love obvious for everyone to see and feel, but never laying it on thick to elicit sympathy and financial support.

With such loving and focused people around her, we dare to hope that the little girl will be saved. If you want to help actualize that happy outcome, contact GMA News TV.

On ‘Inside Edition’

The other medical feature that got our attention and respect on TV last month was a telecast of “Inside Edition” that highlighted the struggle of people suffering from an illness that slowly but surely makes bones calcify to the point of immobility.

The “extreme” medical feature zeroed in on two women who used to be symptom-free, but are now struggling to even be able to walk and remain fairly productive.

Again, we appreciated the fact that the two patients and their spouses told their stories simply, the better to “educate” viewers, without going all weepy and sobby for additional melodramatic and pathetic-bathetic wallop.

The women’s husbands were particularly admirable in their quiet but total love for and devotion to their stricken spouses.

They spent many hours each day attending to their needs, and helped them gain the physical, psychological and psychic strength to triumph over debilitating and “incurable” disability.