These tv reality shows with sobbing women lamenting everything from drug addictions to having a 200 lb 5-year old child because they're idiot parents reminds me so much of that dreadful QUEEN FOR A DAY from the 1950s.
Now, instead of a crown, they get to go to rehab.
What I remember about "Queen for a Day":
It was supposed to identify one woman out of three contestants (IIRC) whose hard-luck story won the hearts and minds of "the studio audience" who voted for the winner via an "applause meter". Jack Bailey (a sort of cheesy version of Walt Disney) was the emcee and it was his job to tell us about the contestants. And, on an occasional show, there would be one lady who had a child in an iron lung, a child with learning disabilities and a husband who had to work out of state in order to feed/support them. Then there would be one who had never spent a day in a beauty parlor or ever had her nails done but had "brittle nail syndrome" which required professional care. She would be married to a wonderful man and they would have three healthy children, but no extra money for nail care. The third would need a new washing machine so that she could continue to help support her family by doing laundry out of her apartment.
And the winner would be...the woman who had never spent a day in a beauty parlor. And her prize was a day at Max Factor and a shopping spree at some name designer's Beverly Hills shoppe. Sometimes there was a meaningful consolation prize: The woman needing a washing machine would get one, but not the crown and not the sash and not all the fabulous prizes. That poor lady with the disabled children and absent husband would get some "thing" or other that may or may not lighten her load.
I always felt outraged when the "right lady" didn't win.
