Chopped Liver - A Community for Live Organ Donors and Recipients

Thursday, September 28, 2006

"Reality" TV and urban legend

Anyone who watches FX network's ribald Nip/Tuck series knows that it is a highly realistic and medically responsible bastion of the truth, with poignant story lines that so closely mirror my own life I can hardly stand to watch. (And anyone who knows me can suss out the sarcasm.)

So I got a good giggle when Ingrid emailed me this from NYC:
"I was watching Nip/Tuck last night--my favorite, deliciously messed-up show of all time--and one of the characters was seduced in a bar and woke up to find that her kidney had been removed! Yikes. Seems there was a rogue group of organ thieves loose in Miami. Anyway, made me think about the horrendous underground organ trade and how very, very creepy it is. Kidneys, etc. worth thousands of dollars. Congratulations---now every time I see anything regarding organs, I think of you."

Sweet!

Kidney theft shows crack me up, and yes, I've seen several of them. Mind you, not a single incidence of it has ever been documented in the United States; it's pure "urban legend," most popularly believed to have begun with a falsified 1997 story at a Texas university.

In a related note, another moral pillar of TV drama light, Las Vegas, got selected for the Parents Television Council's prestigious "Worst TV Show of the Week" for its February 6 episode about a kidney theft.

2 Comments:

  • Falsified? I beg to differ!

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 3:33 PM  

  • But I liked that Las Vegas episode. Because they basically said it *WAS* an urban myth.

    :-)

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 1:52 PM  

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