Recently I’ve been catching up on a lot of DVDs. All those TV shows that people told me I had to watch but I just never found the time for them: 24, The Wire, The Killing. Lots of death – lovely. Part of the reason for this is that I am pretty darn sick of regular telly. Because it seems that you just can’t turn it on these days without finding a reality show.
Many of these – even cookery programmes, of all things – have those stupid suspenseful pauses with dark and foreboding music just because one person’s cake wasn’t quite as moist as someone else’s and they’re about to be “sent home”. Sound the alarm, it’s the end of the world as we know it. (Oh, and it means everything to them to get through to the next round, obviously; it’s been an amazing opportunity and journey, and they’re living their dream.) Sheesh…
The chat shows are no better. Jeremy Kyle, who is always “only being honest” (no you aren’t, you’re being direct and offensive – honesty has nothing to do with it) and telling the over-fertile younger generation to “put something on the end of it” is, to my mind, one of the most dangerous people on television. Why? Because people go to him for help, thinking him to be some sort of relationship guru when he’s actually just a guy in a suit who is verbose and opinionated. And they take his word as gospel.
But the other day I happened across a new reality show called I Wanna Marry Harry. It’s one of those programmes that just make you despair and wonder at the stupidity of the human race. A group of white-teethed American bimbos were competing to marry an eligible bachelor who, they believed, was Prince Harry. Would the picture below fool you? Frankly, I’m amazed it would fool anyone at all – although admittedly the massive castle, valet and posh accent did help cement the premise. I guess that’s why they needed Americans rather than Brits to compete, but it does make me wonder why the contestants didn’t just Google a picture of the real Harry. They can’t have been prevented from using the internet for eight weeks, can they?
I’m also rather amazed that they didn’t think it was ever so slightly odd that Harry definitely, definitely wanted to marry an American – and any old American, come to that. Not that I have anything against nursery teachers, but you would think the future king’s brother might want to go for someone a bit more…well…suitable, right? Mind you, Pippa Middleton is a party planner, so perhaps I’m being too judgmental there.
But where this was more or less just harmless fun, what isn’t harmless fun is the latest series of Hell’s Kitchen. True, Ramsay might well eff his way through the programme for the sake of effect, with language that would make a navvy blush – but the more worrying thing is that the contestants follow suit, thinking it’s a perfectly acceptable way to behave. I have a problem with bullies at the best of times, but when it’s a very, VERY large man effing directly into a woman’s face then it makes me want to commit GBH in no small way. And I’m essentially a pacifist.
Oh, and don’t get me started on Big Brother. The situations these contestants are put through (or rather, put themselves through, because they volunteered) are increasingly distasteful and repugnant. Eating like animals till they’re sick over themselves? The producers should be ashamed. And so should the people that watch it. (I had to watch it as part of my other job, in case you’re wondering.)
The problem is, of course, that the Great British Brain-Dead lap up this dross. But it’s all about viewing figures. If we don’t watch it, they won’t get made. Simple. Many a perfectly decent show has been axed on those grounds. But while people continue to watch with open-mouthed faux horror, we’re lumbered with this baloney. If you’ve seen Ricky Gervais’s Extras, you’ll remember the conclusion of the last episode all too well. He’s dead right: the Victorian freak show never went away.
Ashley is a copywriter, editor and blogger
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