Made: MTV Show Participants Need to Put Forth a Better Effort

I love watching MTV's show Made. For anyone unfamiliar, the show involves someone who has a goal they want to achieve. Past "Made goals" have included going from a tomboy to a girly girl, becoming a ballerina dancer, and trying to land a role on "All My Children." The one to be made is then assigned a coach, who is an expert in the participant's chosen area.

For one month, they work together on achieving a goal, usually done through various activities such as exercise or going out to meet new people. All this builds up to the end where we find out if the person has achieved their goal.

The thing about Made that bothers me is that you'd think some of the participants have no idea what they're getting into. I've seen one too many episodes where the person will complain that their goal is too much hard work or that they'll never make it; sometimes they even quit prematurely only to return to work. In a recent episode with former Real World/Road Rules Challenge participant Diem, she wanted to become a salsa dancer and raise money for a website devoted to the fight for cancer.

While Diem's goal was admirable, she was incapable of accomplishing anything on her own. She couldn't pull together her website benefit without the help of a celebrity party planner. She'd give up on salsa dancing when she wasn't getting the moves down.

She became so whiny and difficult to work with at one point that her coach called off the rest of practice. Of course, her episode had a perfect ending where everyone loved her dance and wanted to contribute money to her website, but how hard did she really work? Most importantly, did she really want this?

I feel that the Made participant should be told to suck it up and work; otherwise they can forget about achieving their goal. While some of these kids no doubt want to be on MTV for their 15 minutes, this show isn't one where the free publicity and rewards come to them. They should know when they sign up that they will have to work hard and there is no tolerance for them slacking off. Where would these people be if they had this kind of attitude in the real world?

Of course, not every participant will achieve the goal they wanted to. However, how do they know this unless they try? In another episode, the girl wanted to try out for her school's volleyball team when she was already out of shape. Instead of completing her run with her coach, she chose to walk out of practice and go home to her sedentary ways of watching TV and eating junk food all day.

She discounted herself out before even running some of that course. In a way, I ended up feeling satisfied when she didn't make the team at the end. If she did that at a practice when MTV cameras weren't around, she'd be thrown off the team or not allowed to try out.

These are just some of the examples of "Made" kids acting like the goal comes to them. Did they not learn that you have to work for things in order to get what you want? Maybe MTV needs to change their regulations and only accept kids who are going to work and not complain about everything they are asked to do. If they don't, I can see more and more kids not achieving their goals unless a miracle happens.