media

Hate figure TV? We’re better than that

Originally written for publication in The Boar, Warwick University’s student newspaper.

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Last weekend, having followed a news agenda with about as much Christmas cheer as a BNP party political broadcast, I was desperate for some sort of televisual escapism. I’d been told the future of trash-TV wasn’t Big Brother or I’m A Celeb, but rather a new wave of ‘structured reality’ shows in the vein of Jersey Shore. Friends recommended MTV’s latest cultural travesty, The Valleys.

The premise (if you can call it that) of The Valleys is a simple one. Nine outlandish young people have been plucked from various parts of Wales, taken to Cardiff, given lots of money and filmed. They get drunk, strip-off and sleep with eachother for the cameras. That is literally it. Make no mistake, the programme is abysmally produced. Although much of it seems to be either be set-up or scripted, there’s no recognizable narrative. The cast lurch from fashion shoots to club nights with wild abandon. They’re all on the show to ‘make it’, but it’s never really explained how they’re supposed to do so.

The show is a car crash on steroids with an appeal that no doubt derives from it’s shock-value. You can’t quite believe these people are willing to say and do such things on television. The women objectify themselves with commitment that would make Britney Spears blush. The men display an egoism a little too much for most Premier League footballers. Sadly, the cast really do seem convinced that their breasts and/or bravado are all they have to offer to the world.

You’re supposed to condescend these people. Laugh at them. How could they be so stupid? So shameless? So desperate? You’re supposed to really hate these individuals. But watching The Valleys, I found it was the producers that I really wanted to get my hands on.

There’s no doubt that the programme makers are guilty of exploiting those they put on screen. They don’t pick on those with genuinely high self-esteem. The cast predictably come from poor, broken homes. They lack the education and aspiration that so many of their comparatively well-off, middle-class viewers take for granted. The Valleys and Geordie Shore (which I subsequently also had the joy of viewing) are modern-day freak shows. It’s no longer ringmasters putting the deformed in stocks. It’s middle-class TV execs putting the most desperate on camera. Throwing money rather than fruit. Telling them to fuck instead of dance. It’s got to stop.

These programmes are becoming more numerous and more popular. It seems we love to hate. But isn’t it all just a bit depressing? If we need to watch someone sacrifice their dignity to boost our own self-esteem, what exactly does that say about us? Bleak as the real world is, laughing at those who have it tougher (or are all-out deluded) simply isn’t the answer. It’s time to tell hate figure TV to pack it’s bags – we’ve got better things to do with our time.

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A Right Royal Mess

Originally written for publication in The Boar, Warwick University’s student newspaper.

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Throughout the summer, Britain’s favourite soap-opera family has found itself – if you’ll pardon the pun – rather more exposed than they would have perhaps preferred. Yet the fact that the photos of our rather sparsely attired royals were taken and subsequently printed by select publications should not have, in itself, come as a shock.

The Leveson enquiry has quite clearly demonstrated that some editors consider privacy a price worth paying for anything that commands the attention of their readers. There is of course a rant to be had about the sort of underhand activity this entails – but it is one that has already been had more times than I can care to remember. It should, by now, be clear that we’d be better off without the kind of ‘investigative journalism’ these outlets offer.

What I found particularly irksome about the whole affair is the way it has been handled by the mainstream British media who have been commended – and have commended themselves – for largely refraining from reprinting the photos. Although coverage of both Harry and Kate has been sympathetic, it has also been gratuitous.

Putting Harry aside for a moment, we can turn our attention to Kate’s snaps. Not literally – while the Boar is a sucker for controversy, that really would be pushing it. These pictures are arguably more invasive and have received the most coverage by a wide margin. On the same day Kate Middleton was pictured topless in a French magazine there were riots and deaths across the Middle East.

But, as the news agenda took shape that day – and indeed the following week – we were invited to revel in the both the intrusive and the insignificant. Some outlets (the BBC, for example) were never going to reproduce the photos themselves but still chose to lead with a story about a topless royal over an eruption of tensions in a region with which many Britons have significant ties.

Why does the media insist on revelling in its own gratuity and/or restraint? Why not just get on with reporting things that matter? The papers and the public seem to have been largely sympathetic towards the royals’ troubles but by taking such a substantial interest they have only really compounded them. The media should take two lessons from this fiasco. They must stop providing paparazzi with the oxygen of publicity and stop continuously reporting on their own activity. Trying to make things better often makes things worse.

It should also be noted that this revelation shouldn’t be lost on particularly smug Boar columnists – like this one, for example.

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