TONIGHT... on (Love Island)
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Noel Coward once said that “television is for appearing on, not watching”, but I’m not convinced. Since the turn of the century, I’ve turned down a vast array of reality shows, starting with Celebrity Detox and ending with Celebrity Big Brother — for which I forewent half a million smackers. Writers by their nature are not naturals for television, and after watching Liz Jones soliloquising about suicide and Germaine Greer vomiting on a carousel with a colander on her head, both on CBB, I’m glad I stuck to my decision.
That doesn’t mean I don’t adore reality TV. I’ve loved it in all its forms; the talent shows (The X Factor), the boss shows (The Apprentice), the scripted soap shows (TOWIE) and even the awful squalid ones about hoarding which seem to be the mainstay of Channel 5. I’ve never had a sex dream about an actor or pop star, but at the height of his Kitchen Nightmares I had one about Gordon Ramsay which lasted three consecutive nights. I’m hazy on the details, but it was immensely enjoyable and there was a lot of swearing.
But Britain’s talent shows ran out of talent a while ago: Simon Cowell cancelled The X Factor last year, after 17 seasons; The X Factor: Celebrity (2019) attracted fewer than 3 million viewers during its first live show — its lowest ratings ever. Compare that with the Will Young/Gareth Gates Pop Idol final, which was watched 20 years ago this month by 15 million people; I remember voting ten times for Gates before my husband hid the phone from me.
It’s never hurt that the sort of people I loathe — pretentious, pompous, right-on Lady Mucks — hate reality TV. See Annie Lennox, sneering that The X Factor is “a factory, owned and stitched up by puppet masters”. Lord forbid that people should want to watch something which amuses rather than lectures them.
Though the stories about My Gran Dying And I’m Doing This For Her got a bit much in the end, there were many beautiful moments backstage at the talent shows when a contestant’s working-class family could be seen embracing and praying, giving lie to all the snideness that the masses generally provoke from commentators.
The kids were refreshingly down-to-earth, too; 20 years ago, reality TV was just a gap year for fit proletarian youngsters. As Saskia Howard-Clarke, from season six of Big Brother in 2005, told me while I was making a documentary called Reality TV Is Good For You: “I knew when I came out of the house there wouldn’t be a limo waiting to whisk me off to Hollywood. I got some nice clothes, a couple of nice holidays. I’ve already got a nice boyfriend out of it. And soon I’m going to get back to work.”
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SubscribeThank you, Julie, you are a breath of fresh air. Doesn’t really matter to me if I agree with all/some/none of what you write, I just love your style. Long may you continue to write for Unherd and whoever else is brave enough to commission you.
Hear hear!
Can’t comment really as I can’t stand watching this crap for more than a few seconds. Who still watches TV? 90+ % is formulaic boring dross or absurdly woke or full of presenters with speech impediments. If I want 10 mins of mindless pleasure I can select a video of japanese carpentry etc on Youtube. Not sure how anyone sits down to another episode of moronic TV and thinks ‘this is different!’.
Haha. Brilliant. Good to see Julie back on top form.
Seconded.
Am I supposed to care? Isn’t part of growing up accepting that different people have different levels of intelligence and different interests? Thus leaving them to do their thing, whilst you do yours?
Reality shows (not talent contests where personal skills/talents are demonstrated) were the invention of psychologists looking for work. The participants are willing rats in a maze, often unaware of the manipulation they being put through to produce ‘content’ to amuse the voyeurs. Often the psychs manipulate their subjects to encourage the most base of human reactions for our entertainment. I think it is degrading to the human spirit that has the potential to create great things.
It make one wants to look up ” making a noose” on YouTube and go and and buy a length of polypropolene rope… before selecting an appropriate chair and beam….
Don’t forget the Tutu, Amyl nitrate, and the Orange.
TV is no longer a thing but enjoyed article
Jools is testing my love to the limits. And my love is strong.
I still think this writer is the one Freddy thought he was signing up when he misheard an offer of articles by Julie Bindel.
“There’ll be quite a lot of stuff about lesbians in them, obviously,” explained Miss Bindel’s agent, “with her being one”.
“Oooh, will there really?” gurgled Freddy lasciviously. “I did enjoyed all the lesbian stuff in that bonkbuster of hers!”
Isn’t reality TV just a passing fad vs the rise of Netflix and popularity of Game of Thrones or squid games?
Yep, it’s just the Coronation Street for women in their thirties, now. Even on the streaming services, e.g. Selling Sunset.
Reality TV is the apotheosis of the waist-high culture: where the greatest amount of money is made from the greatest amount of entertainment produced.
Surely a busy fast-food restaurant that has a dozen chefs frying away furiously all day is going to produce more ‘quality’ meals that bring in much more dough than a superior establishment run by two award-winning chefs who create incredible quality dishes nevertheless – but far fewer such that the accountants don’t come running in droves to work for their little place.
Ah, but Julie even you succumbed to the lure of Desert Island Discs. Your effortless charm wasted on KY as I recall. Sublime closing paragraphs – thank you.
15 minutes of ‘fame’ is quickly being enabled by online technology, with kids being brainwashed by these shows into pursuing the career goal of ‘wanting to be famous’, even if it’s just a few hundred followers.
The whole of society is currently a fascinating experiment.