Should MTV Air DJ AM's Addiction Reality Show So Soon?

So MTV is going ahead and airing the eight-episode DJ AM (real name: Adam Goldstein) reality show Gone Too Far, about the struggles of twentysomething drug addicts.  It will begin next Monday, which is something like only six weeks after the DJ’s death in late August.

“After careful consideration we have decided to air the show. Adam felt strongly that by doing this series he could help other addicts who were at a crisis point to get sober,” the Goldstein family said in a statement…” The decision to air the show has been difficult, but we do this with the profound belief that it will inspire others to seek help.”

Some details about the show’s more dramatic moments have already been publicized, ATJ. 

Here’s the rest of the statement:

“Adam was fully aware that if it were not for his own sobriety he never would have achieved the level of success and happiness he had found. Helping people in their recovery was a huge part of Adam’s life. It is our hope through airing this show that people will get to see the side of Adam that we knew and loved, not just the celebrity DJ, but the honest and caring person who gave so much of himself to help others.”

I do think that reality addiction shows – Celebrity Rehab, Intervention – are ultimately a force for good.  Questionably motivated, perhaps, but I think a show can be both profitable and altruistic.  Intervention, one of my favorite shows, humanizes some addicts and humiliates others (or, more accurately, gives them a stage and a tacit approval to either humanize or humiliate themselves).  The producers foot the bill to send the often-impoverished addicts to rehab; all the same, arguments that the show exploits damaged or mentally unsound people can apply.  On the other hand, uh, welcome to reality TV, glad you’re joining us now!  Bottom line: most of the addicts recover, at least in the short term.

Gone Too Far is thorny in slightly different ways.  Helping addicts is usually pretty therapeutic for an ex-addict, but…

During the filming of Gone Too Far, Goldstein, a former addict who had been sober for over a decade, was confronted with his past demons. In one especially powerful scene, he held a crack pipe for the first time since his recovery.

DJ AM relapsed and OD’ed not long after filming ended.  Correlation does not equal causation, but the plunge back into the world of addiction must have been emotionally depleting for DJ AM.  More icky still is MTV’s push to run the series so soon after the death of its star, whose only real national name recognition came in the days after his death.  No question the show will get better ratings next Monday than it would have next year or, indeed, if DJ AM were still alive.

Hopefully, AM’s family are the most percipient ones here, and the main beneficiaries of the show will, in fact, be the young addicts and DJ AM’s legacy as a compassionate do-gooder.

Source: Rolling Stone.