Dr Phil

 The McCarthy article helped me formulate some thoughts about what irks me about shows like Dr Phil. Beyond the spectacularization of people's medical issues, which I find tends to strip the sufferer of an essential dignity, it was interesting to read about how such spectacualrization of pain is inscribed in a societal ethos that showcases the makeover model as being a "vernacular diffusion of neoliberal common sense" (McCarthy 17). Someone once confessed to me that they wish their sibling could get selected to go on Dr Phil, so that way they would have their mental health care and costs handled for good. This illustrates the way one might come to think outside of the idea of proper care for everyone in society. There is this sense that one might get lucky to get the care one needs-- and maybe even become well known. Somehow this is an accepted norm although I see it as a complete diversion from society's actual needs: the ability to provide proper care for everyone. In McCarthy's words: "Dispersing torture into the realm of popular entertainment via the spectacle of broken lives aspiring to be fixed, it publicly administrates the forms of class war and economic oppression served by governmentality’s promotion of an entrepreneurial, self-managing subject" (30-31).