Chris Golic on E!’s New Reality Series, ‘WAGS’
“The WAG lifestyle is extremely glamorous. You know, it’s private jets, vacations, parties, photo shoots, black cards. You name it, you got it.”
— a WAG.
NFL players today suffer from somewhat of an image problem. As a wife to a retired NFL player and mother of an NFL hopeful, I have been vocal in cautioning people about making generalities regarding all players based on the actions of a few. My hope is that somehow those who live right and do right will grab the attention and change the overall impression.
Unfortunately, we have something new on the horizon to add to that unfavorable perception and we have women to thank for this one. WAGS debuts August 18th on E! Apparently ‘WAGS’ is any acronym that stands for wives and girlfriends of sports stars. I watched as much of the first episode that I could stomach and couldn’t believe what I forced myself to sit through.
I wanted to watch a complete episode before I wrote this in hopes that the promos were somehow misleading about the content. No such luck. This reality show has a cast of football wives and girlfriends, along with a hockey wife thrown in for good measure. At the beginning of the episode they tell us a bit about each ‘WAG.’ Many of them seem somewhat accomplished in various fields on their own, but as the episode unfolds all we see are women who appear to be mean, desperate, shallow and insecure. They constantly talk about the fear of their guys cheating on them, and one woman even talks about going to extremes surgically to make sure she gives her guy “what he needs.” I don’t know if she actually followed through on the procedure because I stopped watching.
Even though I understand that reality TV needs interesting stories and embellishing occurs at times for the sake of good television, I still cannot understand why any woman would want to be seen in this light. Whether the storylines are fact or fiction, what are we doing? Have we as a society become so intoxicated with the idea of fame that we are willing to do whatever is necessary to obtain it? What kind of message are we sending to young people who watch this junk? Why would any players and their significant (or insignificant) others want to be a part of this?
Where are the reality shows for those doing the right things? Women who young people should actually look to emulate, like US soccer players Abby Wambach and Alex Morgan, the ballerina Misty Copeland or even the likes of Taylor Swift. These women define themselves based on what they have done rather than solely on how they look or whom they date. Too many girls already base their self worth on external forces rather than on how they feel about themselves and their accomplishments. That’s an issue this series helps to perpetuate.
NFL players and their families should be unhappy with how this series claims to be representative of the league’s lifestyle as a whole, unless I am so out of touch and this is really how the majority is living their lives these days. But somehow I don’t believe that’s true. WAGS does nothing to help an NFL image that has already suffered as of late, and from what I saw the show has no redeeming qualities at all. Let’s hope that only one episode airs and the rest are thrown in the trash where they really belong.
