Toothbrushin

Not relaxing with TV

I use a manual toothbrush at bedtime because my electric toothbrush sounds like a jackhammer in my mouth, messing with my bedtime chi. Sometimes I watch TV before bed, and follow up my soothing toothbrushing with Dateline specials on... Muuuuurder.
I send myself off to sleep watching an hour episode, delivering four minutes of repetitive content, spread so thin it can be wall-punching frustrating. The most important piece of information, who-dun-it and why, is saved for the last ten minutes.
Each commercial break I watched an ad for a new TLC show called Married By Mom and Dad. In the preview, dad and mom are sitting at a dining table with a potential new wife for their son, and the dad asks with a perverse grin on his face, "What are your sexual expectations with my son?"
Then it cuts to an interview with the potential bride who says, "How do I answer that?" giggling and flipping her hair like a fucking moron.
My reaction was to throw the remote at the TV and shout, "You don't answer it, ass face! You punch his nose in." Getting riled up right before bed and yelling at a non receptive screen is really bad for my bedtime chi, but I had to make it to the last ten minutes of the show, so I could learn it was the husband who hired a hit man to murder his wife because murdering her made more sense to him than paying alimony.
TLC creates TV with the intention of turning the word "disturbing" around. There is 19 kids and counting, which has turned out to be especially sad, since the older son was exposed as having molested two of his younger sisters. Then there is Honey Boo Boo which seemed intent on making the word "poor" synonymous with "stupid." The show imploded on itself after it was discovered the mom was having an affair with a man who was caught molesting one of her older daughters. There is also Sister Wives, the show about a polygamist family defying expectations of being fucking miserable by smiling for the camera as their husband rotates beds each night.
The reality content on TLC glamorizes male privilege. It tells the predominately female audience, "Men molest, rape, dominate and own women, and it's okay. It's actually funny, and great television!"
TLC reinforces and normalizes patriarchy through television shows where women are happily powerless, or happily lack desire to attain any power, and it's all under the false guise that these shows have a new take on acceptance.
After I turn off the TV and my bedside lamp, a thousand thoughts swirl in my mind. So much for relaxing with TV. I really should stop denying myself the electric toothbrush at night.