Has Reality Television Jumped The Shark?
Clive Bull assesses the reality tv shows of 2011.
8 Dec 2011, 11:48
I'm A Celebrity
If you ever needed confirmation that the nonentity-celebrity culture has taken over, then Desperate Scousewives has surely provided it. Even the title gets you off to a bad start. A poor pun with a touch of borrowed sexual innuendo is deemed more important than the fact that none of the characters appear to be married. It’s another example, as well, of how copycat programming has become the default position. TOWIE (The Only Way Is Essex if you really didn’t know) got some decent ratings (for ITV2) and has thus spawned several lookalikes. Desperate Scousewives is part of the so called genre of “dramality” but has neither drama nor reality. The show hopes to make stars of Amanda, described as a “glamour model” and a “proper local Celeb”, and Chloe, who is “on the fast track to superstardom” and is er, the cousin of the wife of a footballer, a kind of nearly-WAG. Then there’s Layla, she’s “fame hungry too” and Sam, who looks a bit like Kate Middleton. You get the idea. It purports to reflect life in Liverpool while warning “some scenes have been created for entertainment purposes”. The wooden acting of the “scripted reality” makes the Liver Birds look like a documentary.
So is there any programme out there that is managing to bring to us a more illuminating version of reality? Well, the old fashioned documentary has borrowed some of reality TV’s clothes and served up something rather good. Educating Essex was worthy of a less derivative title, but probably needed it for the ratings. As with Big Brother and I’m A Celebrity, if you leave the cameras on for long enough people begin to forget they’re there. Educating Essex installed cameras in a secondary school in Essex and followed the progress of a group of GCSE students and their teachers. It inevitably focused on the more troubled, less successful pupils, and it would have been easy and more ratings-friendly to highlight the failings and create some cheap semi-celebs. Instead the programme managed to convey a much more genuine picture of what it is to be a fifteen year old or the teacher who’s there to guide them. I happened to catch it after seeing a bit of Waterloo Road, and for truth and a sense of reality, this documentary trumps the drama every time.
The lines are so blurred now between drama, entertainment and documentary as to render the labels almost useless. Is X Factor reality television? Not really. It’s a talent show with a bit of a back story. They’re real people but perhaps they should also warn us that “some scenes have been created for entertainment purposes”. I’ve talked to producers of these shows, people whose word I absolutely believe, and they tell me there’s not as much “creating” of scenes as you might think. Putting a seventeen year old on live national TV, with so much at stake, creates a drama without you needing to script it. Those moments are more real than any of the pseudo-documentary scenes in “dramality” series.
And how have the big Saturday night shows been doing? As X Factor and Strictly reach their climax this week, even devoted fans have a mixed sense of excitement and relief that it will all soon be over. The X Factor producers will be relieved as well, as what looked like being the least talented line up ever has somehow produced a couple of vaguely suitable potential winners. Frankie Cocozza was dismissed for “breaking the rules” rather than not being able to sing, which enabled them to bring back someone who could. The new panel have done their job and fitted into their roles, but perhaps exposed something of the formula that we’re not supposed to notice. The catchphrases as well have been updated. “You put it down” says Kelly Rowland, I think that’s good? Instead of “you nailed it” Tulisa has brought in “you smashed it”, hopefully not in the Richard Keys sense of the word. No one’s allowed to say that they’ve been “on a journey” anymore, nor that they’ll give it “a hundred and ten per cent”. And who first came up with the phrase “in no particular order” when revealing who’s out of a contest? It’s so commonplace now it won’t be long before the football scores are delivered “in no particular order”, with dramatic pauses and ponderous background music. Tottenham Hotspur - it might be you.
In fact the reality success of the season has been “I’m a Celebrity - Get Me Out of Here”. Few were “celebrities’ and none of them wanted to be out of there too quickly. Not even Freddie Starr. The hero was TOWIE’s Mark Wright who told us at the beginning he was “not going to do anything knowledgeable” in case there was any doubt. It didn’t quite make sense, but we knew what he meant. Managing an impressive second place he revealed that we had seen the REAL him in the jungle and that he was not like that other character in TOWIE. And I think he’s got a point. It doesn’t matter whether they’re celebs or not. If you put a group of people into a situation like that, you will see something of the human condition. Not so much from the revolting tasks, but from the challenge of living with each other. A little like the early days of Big Brother, the interest for me is in how people get on with each other. In some ways what we saw of Fatima Whitbread was more revealing of her character and her life than a carefully crafted documentary. The saving grace of the show is Ant and Dec’s self deprecating humour. They talked about television “eating itself” at one point and are completely open about what’s going on. Ant expresses concern that children are staying up too late to watch the show on a school night. Dec frowns a little and mumbles “ratings” under his breath. Ant tells us how Mark and winner Dougie have experienced a touching “bromance”, brought together by something special. ”Yes, telly” says Dec. After the final four grappled their way through the Celebrity Cyclone trial Anthony Cotton (who?) says: “We may have lost our dignity but at least we’ll eat tonight”. “Oh don’t worry, you lost that long ago”, observes Dec.
Comments (2)
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It's very hard to put into words just how uterly worthless, inane and crass the shows you mention in this post are.
I'm constantly dismayed in the way that supposedly intelligent people that I know schedule their lives around the next instalment of whatever piece of lowbrow crap that the TV channels vomit onto our screens night after night.
I'm happy to say I've never watched any of the shows mentioned here and offer nothing more than a disgusted grunt should anyone have the bad taste to try to discuss them with me.
The sooner these abominations are removed from the world the better.
08/12/2011 16:56Shows serve a purpose.
How do you think most people in life would fill their spare time without mindless garbage to fill it?
They would riot, or even worse, THINK.
Most TV programs are designed to prevent thought..
(Of course, for some people exhausted after a long day;s work, thought is the last thing they want).
And if you think I am a being facetious, I am not. The Romans did the same in Rome. They laid on bread (free food and circuses( in the Arena) - (Panem et circenses) - to keep the Roman mob occupied and prevent them rioting.
For "mob" read "unemployed on benefits".
The State is doing the same next year.. it's called The Olympics..
Soaps, reality TV, dancing X factor? All designed to occupy the "minds" of the great unwashed and keep them satisfied.. and ignore their miserable humdrum empty existences with no future.
(See also Orwell's 1984)
08/12/2011 18:34