Nobody suspects the comfy sofa.
(Monty Python. The Spanish inquisition.)
‘If you want a picture of the future, picture a boot stamping on a human face – for ever … and remember that it is for ever.’
(George Orwell. Nineteen Eighty-Four.)
Dear Holly,
I hardly knew whether this was important enough to mention or not. I mean, on the face of it, the lacklustre and trivial antics of yet another bunch of celebs, that ever increasing handful of people ‘desperate for some ardent glory’, seemed hardly worth turning on my laptop for. I had always seen the rise of this particular strand of what we laughingly call our culture as something to be studiously avoided, but had not afforded it any serious observation until just the other night. Then, whilst sat watching you watch television, I was reminded as to why I no longer owned one, and, with the distance and clarity that not owning one lends you, I saw with an Orwellian certainty why I suddenly wished that you were in the same boat as I, so to speak.
The latter part of the twentieth century saw the elevation of the celebrity as it harnessed itself to the ever-increasing power of television. The voracious appetite of the media was, of course, only too pleased to welcome a cheap and easily replaceable source of entertainment into its’ fold. Together they flirted with, and floundered through, many exercises in banality until, god help us, they eventually hit upon what has risibly become known as ‘The Reality Show’. At last they had a formula that asked little or nothing in the way of talent from the ever-interchangeable participants, and that could be tortured and twisted through a million different permutations, allowing the bloody thing to run forever…
It is no wonder that God has packed his rod and staff and his overnight bag and buggered off in a huff to a place beyond the miasma of the unknowing. The one that has taken his place has seemingly created the biggest miracle of all. Forget the water into wine routine, that’s just old hat, and as for the feeding of the five thousand, well, whatever. No brothers and sisters, draw near and hear my words, for one is upon us whose multi-function remote control I am unworthy to finger. It has become all things to all men, being simultaneously both god and whore, and further still, it is in possession of an alchemic power far beyond the whit of mere mortal man. Yes, hear me my friends and tremble, for it has stumbled upon the secret that has eluded man since the dawn of time.
This deity turns shit into art!
Well, if not into art, then at least into entertainment.
Apparently.
Halleluiah!
Sorry, did I type that right out loud? Forgive me I got carried away. Anyway the program we were watching was called ‘Airhead idiots on ice.’ Ok, so maybe I made that bit up, but I believe that just about covers it. Briefly, the plot was as follows. Take one bunch of young, good looking (see? I hate them already) wannabees and pair them off with an equal number of recognised experts in their field, or in this case, rink. Give the afore mentioned couples enough time to work up a torrid and drear dance routine and then launch it before a panel of judges and an awaiting national audience.
Why?
I have absolutely no idea whatsoever. The boys and girls who could skate may well have entertained or even enthralled me with their hard earned skills and beauty if only they had not been hampered by the left footed and leaden efforts of their manikin partners. As a result, and despite great costumes, lighting, camera work etc, the best that could be said of the ensuing display was that they, er, did it. Not well, but they got there. This was, of course, after edited highlights of the rehearsals designed to show us just how crap they were at the beginning. And guess what? The ruse worked. The crowd went wild. I really must get back on my medication.
No, hang on. I’ve just had a brilliant idea. How about at the next Olympics, just before sending out our pair of dodgy skaters, hungry to replicate Britain’s former glories, we show the panel of judges edited highlights of the pair in rehearsal? Show them all the thrills and spills that occurred whilst the hapless pair traversed the torturous road to crapsville? Bugger the drive for perfection, stuff the requirement of talent allied to sheer bloody willpower. Let’s just shoot a really great video and show it in juxtaposition to a really drab performance and we’ll be home and dry. Gold on the podium, a word or two of praise from the dispatch box at the next P.M.’s question time and an O.B.E before January the second. Sorted.
Just think of it, we will never have to strive for anything ever again. For somewhere between the feeble and vacuous posturings of our politicians and the inane world of the celebrity lies a land called blandly indifferent. Yes my children, I have seen tomorrow and it is called mediocrity. And listen! Do you hear the voices of the media moguls, these latter day prophets, raised in adulation at the new dawns’ approach? Yes, and so do I, and I don’t bloody like it. And neither should you.
Orwell was right in his vision of a future world where everybody was held in an unknowing sufferance. But even he didn’t see that the foot, stuck so permanently in our collective face, could be subtle, and that far from wearing the oppressive boot, it would in fact be wearing a comfy slipper.
So to answer my own question, yes, of course it’s important, given that any media that has unlimited access into our homes, and therefore into the minds of our young, is going to make a deep impression. If, as in this case, the largest part of the message that it carries seems to engender a hopelessly facile ‘reality’ then we all have the right to be worried. Very bloody worried.
So next time you catch yourself watching a program in which the self obsessed scrabble shamelessly in pursuit of their fifteen minutes of pointless fame, ask yourself the following question, just how many new suits of clothes is the king buying these days?
Yours in mutual apathy,
Chris Wilson White.
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