Matt’s melorheostosis lie upsets advocates, CBS okay airing things “we do not condone”

On Big Brother this week, we saw houseguest Matt Hoffman gleefully discuss his strategy: pretending his wife has melorheostosis, which “is a rare and progressive disorder characterized by hyperostosis (thickening) of the cortical bone” that “can result in severe functional limitation, extensive pain, soft tissue contractures, and limb, hand an/or foot deformity,” according to the Melorheostosis Association.

Unsurprisingly, the group isn’t thrilled and wants to meet with CBS executives. “If Matt thinks melorheostosis is funny, he should look at the video on our Web site showing some of the beautiful little children afflicted with this catastrophic disease,” its chair, Kathleen Harper, told the New York Post.

CBS told the paper’s TV critic, who’s outraged that this aired, that “‘Big Brother’ is a reality show about watching a group of people who have no privacy 24/7 … At times, the houseguests make comments, reveal prejudices and other beliefs that we do not condone.”

I’m actually glad the network and producers aired it, because it’s good to expose Matt’s stupidity and callousness, and that’s far better than covering up and tacitly defending horrible behavior and bigotry, which is ironically what CBS has done in the past, defending their censorship by saying that racist comments “were offensive and did not meet the network’s standards.”