I think the scientists call this process desensitisation,
and it works alarmingly quickly. For example,
in a matter of days BBC3 will broadcast Mischief:
Let's Make a Baby, a programme which is clearly
meant to be a response to Greg Dyke' question:
'How low can reality TV go?' which he posed at
last summer's Edinburgh TV Festival. The
show's premise is to set up an independent
TV production company and hire a
comedian-turned-MD to pitch a format entitled
'Let's Make A Baby! (The Race To Conceive
Britain's First Reality TV Baby)' to a bunch of
executives at Europe's biggest TV sales fair.
Presumably this idea felt fresh, funny
and suitably envelope-pushing way back in,
say, September; but if I read this week
that it is to run on Saturday nights throughout
February, hosted by Davina, I'd not only be unsurprised,
I'd probably not even bother tuning in. Though
obviously, 'Let's Make A Superbaby! (The Race To
Conceive Britain's First Celebrity Reality TV Baby)'
would be a different matter entirely and you'd have
to peel me from the screen. And surely it's time
Vernon Kay and Tess Daly had another one?
But according to the news this morning it was all a big joke and the people involved just wanted to see how many suckers would turn up for the auditions. 200 hundred people turned up. 200 people thought it would be a great idea to get on a Reality TV show by offering to make a baby with a complete stranger on live television, their choice of partner being controlled by the whims of teenagers with too much time and money on their hands. I think there is an argument for sterilisation in this story. Does that make me a conservative, eugeniscist? I know that's strong but stories like this make me feel very cross and worried about the society that we have created. What would happen to the child? Would the £15,000 prize money go towards its upkeep or would the TV company take it away to make a Truman World type show for real? The mind boggles.
Or is anyone else gob smacked by just how low people will go to get their faces and other bits on the telly?
P.S. rambles on stuff I've seen lately have been put up on my other site if you have an interest.
2 comments:
Oh just another reason why I'd like to go back to my little piece of the bog too Trixi. Or has the culture of reality hit Ireland too? Please advise.
I think that's(the one you mention) a reality show too far.
Actually while typing this, I just had a silly idea. How about Big Brother's Crannog, and you can translate Big Brother into Irish for me, Mor something? And of course the contestants would have to forage for their own food.
I think it would be called An Crannóg Dearthair Mór but I'm open to correction! They did a radio show years ago here where they sent Gerry Ryan and others out into the wilds to forrage for themselves and it was brilliant! There was uproar though when Ryan paid a farmer to kill a lamb for them as everyone considered it to be cheating!
And as for the reality TV thing RTE inflicted some attempts on us over the years such as Treasure Island (a classic in it's own right) and the appalling Celebrity Farm. So yes we've been bitten by the bug over here as well. I don't think there's any escape from it!
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