REALITY SHOWS: of artifice, botoxed babes and voices that could cut glass.

 

Illustration courtesy of Gary Brookins politicalcartoons.com

All right, I know there are people out there who like reality television shows.  Good luck to them for having something on their sets to watch when there isn't a good comedy or drama scheduled.  I'm not one of them but I'm still fascinated by their appeal.

I first heard of reality television or its precursor, the infomercial, just over twenty years ago when I was holidaying with my mother in Port Douglas in Queensland.  This was a rare treat as we had never had a mother/daughter holiday before.  I was still reasonably attractive at that time, even a little 'glam', and my appearance drew the attention of a married couple who were sitting around the hotel pool one day.  We exchanged greetings and started chatting.  It turned out that they had something to do with producing shows for television, I can't quite remember in what capacity, and asked me if I'd heard of infomercials.  I had not and they went on to explain that these were a long form of advertising in the form of entertainment.  They said a lot more than that and more succinctly but that's the gist of it.  They went on to say that they thought that I'd make a good presenter on such a show.

Well most people would have said something sensible in response to this that might have landed them a job.  Not me, no.  I remember thinking to myself 'how ghastly' about the notion of such a show and, although I don't remember my exact reply, I'm sure it wasn't as enthusiastic as it should have been and they did not follow up with an offer of employment.  If I'd had a brain in my head at the time, I should have gushed about the idea.  I had, after all, been a model for things such as hotel brochures, newspaper advertisements and the like when I lived in Hong Kong.  I'd also appeared in television advertisements  when I moved to Perth.  Deep down, however, I did not like the idea of advertising as entertainment but I confess to being disappointed at the couple ignoring my disinterest and not offering some work.

For some years after that I waited for infomercials to make their appearance on television.  It took a while and I can't remember now which Australian made version of such a show came first that would fit the infomercial category, but I think it would be The Block.  I have to confess to never having watched it, but because it promotes the use of hardware and like materials I figure that it rates as an infomercial.  Even if it doesn't mention a product's brand name, it undoubtedly encourages people to renovate, which in turn sends them to their local hardware store.

The type of shows that followed it were not in any way what could be described as infomercials and I haven't heard that word again since the nineties.  Survivor and Big Brother followed and they weren't trying to sell anything.  In my mind the only thing these shows helped to sell were advertising slots for the stations that showed them.  What they also accomplished was to help television stations comply with the percentage of Australian content they were obliged to broadcast.

I can understand if you criticize me for writing about shows I haven't actually watched but I have watched as much of them as I could stand in the beginning except for Big Brother.  The commercials for Big Brother alone were enough to turn my stomach.  I was simply appalled such dross could make it to our screens and some of it was morally questionable to even the most open minds.  I've watched commercials for the most recent Big Brother and it seems to have lost the seedier aspect of the show but I'm still not going to watch it.

Most shows of this type now fall under the heading of reality television.  Shows such as Masterchef, Dancing with the Stars, Big Brother and Survivor fall into this category along with The Bachelor, Australia's Got Talent and The Voice.  The Block and Better Homes and Gardens probably would be considered what the couple in Port Douglas had in mind when they were planning to make infomercials.  While they are not classed as reality television but as lifestyle programs, to my mind the difference between the two is semantic.  Here is the blurb on one website for Better Homes and Gardens:

"With a total audience reach of over six million, Better Homes and Gardens is the country’s original and most successful multi-platform brand, combining a TV show, power-house print magazine, thriving digital and social platforms and dedicated e-commerce vertical, bhgshop.com.au."

So this is a show that is both entertaining and designed to sell products while the talent, survival and peeping Tom style shows such as Big Brother and The Bachelor are there solely for entertainment.  Well, some people's entertainment.  Okay I'm being derisive again but I do know plenty of people love these shows.  My son, his wife and mother-in-law do, at least Survivor and Masterchef.  A friend of mine in Sydney, with whom I was staying for a week, also made me sit through days of Australian Idol when it first aired.  I did have the privilege of watching Guy Sebastian win it.  I didn't mind it too much as Sebastian has a stunning voice and I was plugging for him to win.  I think I even voted but that was the end of my Australian Idol watching days when I returned to the safety of my reality show free watching home.

If anyone thinks reality shows aren't scripted, think again.  In my taxi driving days a few years ago I drove a couple early in the morning to the airport.  They had to be on the Big Brother set down south and they worked on the sets as I recall.  At the time the shows were live at Dreamworld but before the people who actually appeared on the show arrived and it went public, the couple informed me that other people rehearsed the scripted scenes.  So much for the reality component of the show.

When I watch advertisements for The Bachelor, The Voice or even Beauty and the Geek what I mostly catch sight of is people on the show feigning extraordinary surprise with their mouths wide open and their hands up to their cheeks at the antics of fellow contestants on the show.  With The Voice it is even more ridiculous as highly paid celebrity judges jump from their seats, arms akimbo in admiration at a contestant's talent.  It is so obviously over the top and designed for the audience that it is an insult to the intelligence.  Added to this, while some contestants may have admirable voices, they all seem to choose songs that push their volume to the limit and make them sound like a cat mating.  What happened to a bit of mellow crooning?  Do they have to flex their vocal chords to breaking point to prove they've got what it takes?  It is these feigned emotional responses and formulaic method of presenting songs that puts me right off watching the shows even if I ever toyed briefly with the idea of doing so.

I have recently seen advertisements, way too often I might add, for the latest series of The Bachelor.  In one I saw the bachelor sucking on the lips of three different women who were vying for his affection and that was in the one advertisement.  It just seemed unhygienic and how can people on these shows actually show natural emotion after they're placed in the ideal position, the lighting set up and then the cameras start to roll?  It's so fake it's mind boggling but apparently I'm a cynic.  Or perhaps viewers get a laugh out of it.  I suppose that makes it entertainment.

On a final note, and this applies probably only to me, I have a problem with the 'strine (Australian vernacular for those who don't know the expression) accent of some of the people on these shows.  I am Australian and, I believe, no snob.  I just hate the accent and hadn't heard a strong one until I met my future husband, his family and friends.  I must have lived in a pretty isolated community.  His family and friends assumed I was snooty, which I wasn't, but my voice apparently cast me as such.  It's a common Australian attitude I've discovered that the more roundly spoken are considered snobs.  It's known as the tall poppy syndrome and I can tell you that it's enough to make you a snob because you are judged when you are not, in fact, judging.

I do believe, though, that I have become a voice snob.  Before the seventies the Australian accent wasn't really heard on our televisions.  Our newsreaders were roundly spoken and enunciated clearly.  Then along came Bob Hawke and the Labor government after decades of a Liberal and more elitist government.  Bob Hawke did many great things but his voice sounded like a saw hacking through metal.  Bob promoted and financially supported the Arts and Australian television and cinema.  Also great, but there was a catch.  It had to reflect real Australia.  Unfortunately and for a time, it only tended to reflect what was then termed the working classes and most of them spoke with the heavy 'strine accent.

The Australian film industry at last had some money to churn out films that they tried to sell internationally but they had little success at first because the Australian accent and colloquialisms were too strong for the international moviegoers to understand.  Besides the actors talked too fast.  How to fix this problem?  The film makers then reverted to making period films set when Australia was younger and spoke with a more British accent.  Such gems as Picnic at Hanging Rock and The Man From Snowy River were the product of this and our films began to sell overseas.

How do I know this?  I studied Australian Film and Television as part of my Media and Communication degree.  There was even a period called the Ocker Period in Australian films, ocker being another term for the Australian accent.  These were the films made with the Australian vernacular that flopped.

Okay, that was a long side track.  The point I was going to make before going on it was that I hear too much of this vernacular on our reality shows.  Pretty women with botoxed foreheads, plumped up lips, tattooed eyebrows and voices that could cut glass.  Yes, I know other Australians probably couldn't care less but it makes me wince.  Have you noticed how many well known Australian actors have become internationally famous?  Yes there's Russell Crowe, Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman and many others but when they appear in films in the USA or the UK they take on the accent of the country in which the film is set.  Only occasionally does our accent pop its head up and when it does, it can be quite appealing but not when everyone in the film has it.  Only Paul Hogan got away with it in Crocodile Dundee but that was because the whole film revolved around a very lovable Australian larrikin and his 'strine was part of the story.

Don't judge me too harshly.  I'm immensely proud of what Australia has achieved in its television and film industry.  I'm just terribly sad that it doesn't promote more rounded speech as much as it allows the heavier and less melodious accent run rampant.  I can live with both but I'm afraid Australian children only hear more articulate speech on shows that come from overseas and, frankly, I don't want them to sound American or copy variations of the British accent.  The Australian accent can be very pleasant when it's not over the top or the words all slur together when it's spoken too fast.

I doubt if I'll ever change my mind about reality television shows but enough people like them to keep the industry coming up with more and more of them.  It seems that, like Cricket, I just can't escape them.

END

 

 

 

 

BLOGLESS (aka CLUELESS)

BLOGLESS.

 

It's high time I added a post.  I've been trying to get the Blog header's image right and add text to it.  This has proven very difficult.  One good thing about computers: they work the mind.  They are like a contrary spouse; you have to do things their way or not at all.  But that's not a put down to contrary spouses; they teach you things.  If you survive them, you get stronger and savvier.

 

But now I'm Blogless.  I only like to write when I have something to say, a bit like "Mr. Ed the Talking Horse".  I have a son like Mr. Ed.  I wondered if he'd ever learn to talk.  It turns out he was just saving it for when he had something to say.  When God was handing out tongues, I got two and my son got a lot less.

 

So, what to rattle on about today?  I had a thought that I should rate the films I've seen this year.  Don't you love those '100 best films to see before you die' things?  When they add "E.T." and leave out "Gone With the Wind", I just don't bother to read them.

 

I should add, not that it really matters in any way, that I obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree majoring in Communications, with particular emphasis on the study of media: that is, cinema, television, radio and newspapers.  Even more particularly the media studies on cinema were based on Australian Cinema.  I was subjected to many showings of Australian cinema and learned its history.

 

Now, I'm not crazy about a lot of Australian films but its history is interesting.  Australia was the first country in the world to produce a full length feature film.  However, while it had creativity in great globs, it lacked business savvy.  The U.S. bought up all the distribution rights in the Pacific and it was bye bye to Australian cinema.  The U.S. film industry went to California and churned out films to an already captive Pacific and who knows where else and they were darned good at it too.

 

Isn't it a kind of just retribution that the U.S.A. is now getting a lot of its major stars from the land Down Under?  I believe it's because Uncle Sam became so productive, so efficient, that it forgot its soul.  They had to look elsewhere for inspiration and the Oz film industry, so delightfully unaffected by commercial success, was still creative.

 

From this dearth of pecuniary success, the Australian industry still worked at producing actors and directors and from these came Peter Weir, Fred Schepisi et al.  It was like a definitive moment in evolution that creates a type.  Hollywood, paying attention to this new evolutionary step forward, immediately imported it.  Once ensconced the Australian directors must have asked probably the whole of, NIDA's (National Institute of Dramatic Art) graduates to Hollywood.  While an American cannot do an Australian accent without permanently damaging their tongue, an Australian actor can mimic the American drawl as easily as throwing a prawn on the barbie.

 

As this was happening Australian television took the hint.  For years it had made shows like 'Homicide', 'Skippy' and 'The Sullivans'.  The actors, although perfectly normal looking human beings, were not glamorous or, even necessarily, good looking.

 
"Neighbours" started the push to pretty people.  Even Kylie Minogue with her, then, appalling Australian accent, killed off her dreadful eighties hairdo and, with a little help from Britain, rounded her accent and became quite dazzling.  Many stars from that equally appalling (in my humble opinion) show were then chosen for their physical spunkiness.  What else, after all, could have kept it going?  Many somehow made it to the US and stardom.

Where am I going with this?  Actually, I have no idea.  I think I was about to give a rating to the movies I have seen this year; that is 2012-2013.

One I really liked was a strange, eclectic little film called, "Moonrise Kingdom".  It just keeps coming back into my mind when I have forgotten so many others.  Bruce Willis, Frances McDormand, Bill Murray and Harvey Keitel all play curious under-stated roles.  I won't explain it.  If you like curious, memorable little films, it's worth watching.

 

"The Heat", with Sandra Bullock was actually really funny.  Her foul mouthed co-star helped make the film, about two very different policewomen, a real winner.

 

On the other hand "Gravity" with Bullock was awful.  Some fool thought a hand held camera would work even with the extraordinary special effects.  George Clooney floats off into space to die as if he's going down the street to buy something.  He doesn't seem to mind at all.  He reappears as sort of a ghost in Bullock's mind but, having given her a pep talk, disappears again to his next movie.  The final scene with Bullock is obviously an analogy to life beginning on earth.

 

The appalling remake of "Carrie" with the actress who should have known better, Julianne Moore as her mother, also uses a hand held camera.  No one, absolutely no one, and I can speak for everybody, likes films made with a hand held camera as if they are trying for the realism of a documentary.  So why use one on a big budget film?  Is this a new trend or is someone cutting costs?

 

The only other interesting things to watch this year have been the television series, "Game of Thrones" and "Hannibal" .  I can't believe the producers of "Game of Thrones" finished it at Season 3 and left us in limbo.  They are still making Season 4.  So too are the producers of "Hannibal".  I hope, that after all this waiting, we're not left with a feeling an anti-climax; so long the case after you wait too long for something.  It's like you work up too many digestive juices waiting for a meal and, having eaten, get a stomach ache.

 

To ease my distress during the wait I've tried watching a few new shows.  "The Blacklist", with James Spader, is so-so.  Spader was one of the cutest, sexiest men in movies.  He is now slightly overweight and bald.  He's grown as an actor in every respect.  I really miss cute Spader.  Older Spader is nothing to look at and the show is entertaining but predictable.

 

I tried watching "Elementary" with Lucy Liu as Dr. Watson and someone who plays a modern Sherlock Holmes.  I yawned and turned it off.

 

Then I found "American Horror Story".  If you saw "The Twilight Zone" in the Sixties, this is its worthy grandchild in the Tens (2010's).  It's quite different to "The Twilight Zone" but is also very spooky and it's great to see an older Jessica Lang really acting.  It's a suite of stories; three to be exact; each with about eight episodes.  The same actors play different roles in each suite.  If you've got the stomach, I recommend it.  This is really different television, but don't let the kids or the easily spooked watch it.

 

OK, that's a post.  I'll have to label it something; maybe Film and TV Critiques.  Yes, that'll do.

 

END