FREAK SHOWS AMONG US, TONIGHT ON ET!

Pretty sensational title, eh?

Yes, sensationalism still sells--ask the tabloids, or the paparazzi who mow down their prey in order to get the final photographs of their victims. The paparazzi are having TV specials about themselves and their "work" now, as if they were heroes trying to feed a populace starved for Brangelina photographs and Madona baby adoptees. (Hey, Mother Theresa and Princess Diana are dead, somone's got to fill the void!) We live in an age where celebrity sells itself in an endless, vicious cycle that doesn't even seem to need the public's participation to keep it going. And it's getting worse by the day.

For many years, the circus freakshow and the carnival sideshow were the chief purveyors of human oddities--dwarves, giants, hairy ladies, tattooed men, conjoined twins, fat ladies and human skeletons. In short, any type of extreme human body was placed on display for those who wished to gawk. Some of these poor souls were exploited, while others chose to exploit themselves for the ring of cold hard cash. (Rumor has it Col. Tom Thumb and P.T. Barnum were great friends.) Still, an ever more socially conscious society rejected such marginalization of our fellow human beings, considering such gawking and hawking to be impolite at best, disgraceful at worst.

And then, there's Entertainment Tonight, "the most-watched entertainment news program in the world," celebrating 25 years on the air. Once upon a time, it was fairly entertaining, or at least mildly amusing: celebrity interviews, promos for upcoming entertainment events, perhaps a touch of scandal now and then, but nothing too invasive. Ah, those were the good ole days!

Now, despite the continuing presence of Mary Hart (one of the original hosts), the show has devolved into one of the most disgusting, exploitive freak shows in entertainment history. On any given night, there will be countless promises to show us anorexic women, ugly women, pretty women dressed up undercover as ugly fat women, nasty divorces and countersuits, weddings that turn into divorces within months . . . and oh, yes, nightly bulletins on the plight of Anna Nicole Smith. (Okay, she lost a son just as she gave birth to a daughter, but this spacey woman has now had 20-to-30 times more exposure on this program--with absolutely nothing to say!--than any other REAL celebrity in the world. Even Andy Warhol would say her 15 minutes is UP!) This is not reportage, folks, it's morbid garbage picking! How many anorexia stories can one show do? Tonight, trying to top itself, ET showed us Tracey Gold of Growing Pains (an anorexia survivor herself) heading to Australia to interview anorexic twins! "Last year, they looked like skeletons--how will they look a year later? Not tonight, folks, though we said we'd show them! Come back tomorrow night! Step right up, under the big top, to see the freaks . . ." HONESTLY . . . ! Then, on the same program, in between stories on Brittany Spears and Kevin Federline's divorce and Anna Nicole's pain over the paternity dispute, they dressed attractive correspondent Vanessa Menillo up in a fat suit, braces and a frizzy fright wig a la Ugly Betty, so that tomorrow we can see her humiliation via hidden camera.

Okay, enough is enough! Yes, America's TV and movie stars are indeed our royalty, figureheads who supposedly share their glamour with us. But truly, ET is sinking ever and ever lower. Whereas they used to overdo the on-location swimsuit photoshoots for Sports Illustrated, they now are simply scavenging for death and dying without giving their subjects the least shred of dignity. (And what of the former anorexic newswoman they kept showing for months? Or Sara Evans' former nanny, also an anorexic whom they gave a lie-detector test to see if she'd slept with Sara's husband?)

It's enough to bring back those immortal words from the days of Joe McCarthy and the blacklist--"Have you no sense of decency, sir? Have you no shred of decency?" Have they no sense of decency at all?! Positive action is what I always encourage, and I hate to suggest a boycott, though much deserved. But aren't we all too intelligent to watch this level of total trash? Do something positive for yourself--stop watching.