Farewell Honey Boo Boo, too tacky even for US reality TV

White trash culture has its limits – like a mother dating the man who once molested her own daughter

Charles Laurence

New York - By definition, ‘white trash culture’ has no shame. But its celebration – or perhaps exploitation - in the media does, it turns out, have limits.

The top-rated reality TV show, Here Comes Honey Boo Boo, starring a fat, goofy little blonde girl and her fat, low-income, low-IQ mother as they compete in juvenile beauty contests, has just been pulled from the airwaves by its previously shameless producer, the cable channel TLC.

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Charles Laurence is a US correspondent for The Week.co.uk. He is a former New York bureau chief for The Daily Telegraph. He divides his time between Manhattan and Woodstock, upstate New York.