what do i think? All those Idol shows, along with Big brother and all those other phoney *reality* shows, appeal to the lowest common denominator and show how superficial and facile Western society is, with its obsession with the media and celebrity. I've no doubt that some of the winners and runners-up have some real talent and probably wouldn't have gotten their break any other way, but for the majority it's just a pathetic attempt to show off, and the rows with the judges are little more than voyeurism for those who watch. It's akin to listening with glee to your neighbours rowing while you listen with your ear pressed to the wall.

I agree with you that these idiots, brought up in the mistaken belief so prevalent now that *anyone can be anything they want to be* (they can't) really do think that their bathtub sub-karaoke wailings actually have some merit and that they really are shocked when the judges tell them they're rubbish. I don't mind seeing their naive stupidity smashed, maybe they'll learn something from the experience, but it also says a lot about the people who get a kick out of watching other people make idiots of themselves.

I wonder if the title of *Idol* is a multiple pun. It gives a sense of false worship (thou shalt not worship false idols) and also sounds like *idle* seeing as most of those who watch are bone-idle, intellectually if not just that they're layabouts.

Needless to say, i don't watch any of them. I catch the odd bit that Mrs Taw watches. unfortunately stuck in the hospital as I am at the moment, i have to suffer watching the rubbish everyone else watches in the teevee room. Thank heavens Mrs Taw got me a laptop!

Edited by - Tawakalna on 1/19/2006 2:07:28 PM

i agree 100% with taw

I'm detecting a little arrogant condecension in your tone, Taw. You sound like you think you're better than me just because I like a TV show you think is beneath you. I was just asking a simple question, not asking for a tirade on Western Culture. Maybe being stuck in the hospital is making you edgy. The hospitals in America have TV's in every room so we don't have to share.

Let's get those missiles ready to destroy the universe!!

*Reads Taw's post and then sniffs and wipes eyes* Now there's the noble leader of the PDRNS that I once knew! He has been absent for far too long...

I myself, have never, and will never watch any so-called "reality" programs because they are the worst form of entertainment, are excessively commercialised, are obviously planned and pre-scripted, and are basically voyeuristic. As Taw said, they are aimed at the lowest common denominator (ie. the common man), and provide absolutely nothing of value to the viewer. On top of that, the networks then try to sell the program to the public as "psychological experiments" or "searches for talent", when they are simply carbon-copies of the same show being played in a different country. Those "Idol" shows for example, have three similar judges in each incarnation; the "nice" one, the "famous" one, and the "nasty" one. The whole template is so dated and unbelievably common that I cannot believe that such shows are still receiving ratings. *Thinks* Actually, knowing the Australian public, I *can* believe it. *Spits in the direction of aforementioned networks and walks off*

EDIT: Ug, I have a low opinion of "reality" show viewers generally, but I *have* known exceptions .

Edited by - esquilax on 1/20/2006 12:21:47 AM

losers as in contestants or viewers ?

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You sound like you think you're better than me just because I like a TV show you think is beneath you

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Just remember - you are all inferior to me, and my ego...

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losers as in contestants or viewers ?

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There is a difference?

*edit* - added smilies, just incase!

edit: fixed your shocked smiley, just incase!

Edited by - Chips on 1/20/2006 1:06:18 AM

Edited by - parabolix on 1/21/2006 10:16:01 PM

*arrogant condescension* - it wouldn't be the first time I've been accused of that! I prefer to think that I have a healthy contempt for lowbrow entertainment, I don't really have any *herd* instinct and I refuse to subsume my identity to mass popular culture. Besides I get no pleasure whatsoever out of watching people warbling and wailing for their few seconds of celebrity, it has no stimulation for me at all. Give me a nice documentary about the socio-economic consequences of latifundia in the later Roman Empire anyday! However you are wrong if you believe that I think I'm *better* than you or anyone else, i don;t think anything of the sort; i just have better taste which is a different thing altogether. That doesn't mean I think I'm a better person. After all, Mrs Taw watches this rubbish, lord knows why, and she's an intelligent women. I really wish she wouldn't though, i'm sure it's damaging her brain in some way.

I must point out, Ug, that your question is not a *simple* question at all; it's open to many interpretations and allows for a deeper commentary than you perhaps thought it did! *Reality* TV shows are indeed an exemplar of much that I dislike about Western culture - the all-pervading shallowness, materialism, and instant gratification that permeates so much of our societies these days.

Imagine if you will that aliens come to Earth, powerful aliens from some sort of Galactic Confederation who are to judge us based on our culture and prevailing attitudes...

"So, leaders of Earth, what do your people do for entertainment...?"
"We watch this bl**dy rubbish, mighty alien representative" (switches on American/Pop/Australian Idol or any other reality Tv cr*p)

long pause...

"hmmmm, I see. Lieutenant Zarg, break out the giant laser planetary destructor cannon!"

I mean really, is this the best that people can expect in the 21st Century? back when I was a kid I expected a lot more of the future, and yet for all our technological advances this is whats filling up the aether? My godfathers, Tv was better when i was a kid even if it was all in black & white, at least it endeavoured to inform as well as entertain, not just pandering to popular demand and prejudices. This rubbish today would make Goebbel's proud. it fulfills all his criteria for popular mass media manipulation.

You won't be surprised to learn that I barely watch telly. Apart from some documentaries and the occasional film, I d/l the few shows that i regularly watch, Battlestar Galactica, Lost, and Rome, all of which you'll note have their roots pre-1980s. UK Gold is one of the few channels I flick to, as it's full of the classic shows from my youth, which were genuinely entertaining and not demeaning like the rubbish nowadays. Okay, we used to laugh at people's bungling on the Generation Game or It's a Knockout but it was good-natured and we were laughing with them, not at them; now it's a lot more vicious and viewers take a malicious delight in watching folk make idiots of themselves. It's cruel and heartless and really very cynical. I know they're trying to manipulate me the moment I start watching, which is something I deeply resent. And ultimately each and every show is a phoney popularity contest where ewveryone is playing to the cameras, regardless of their abilities, and if you think it ain't rigged, think again. Nothing you see is real.

I will confess that I am a bit edgy about this at the mo', I have to suffer this awfulness all day long. These poor saps in here have made all this cr*p the centre of their lives, the lad next door to me just witters on about Celebrity Big Brother all day, or some other rubbish like X-Factor. I can't be too horrible to him though, he's in a bad way (leulaemia) and he'll prob be dead in 3 months.

I'm afraid my idea of a talent show is ol' Hughie Green and Opportunity Knocks - simpler times, simpler days. i really don't like the modern world and mass popular culture.

EDIT - I've just been discussing this very subject with Mrs Taw on her morning visit with a bag of goodies, and basically she watches it because it's effortless entertainment that just washes over her, and yes there is an element of voyeurism about it. You see, I can't put up with that; I like my entertainment not effortless but to tax me and challenge me, and I can't abide voyeurism, I find being privy to people's private lives and personal behaviour quite embarassing and shameful. I wouldn't like it to be done to me therefore I can't stand to see it doen to someone else. *Do unto others as you would have done unto you* - something we all could do with remembering from time to time!




Edited by - Tawakalna on 1/20/2006 4:47:30 AM

I must say that i agree wholehartedly with Taw on this matter. the so-called 'reality' television in this matter is so far from reality in any sense that it makes the show just that more ludicrous.

A man gets his choice of 12 women, and has to date them sucessivley, breaking up with, in sequence, the ones that he doesnt like... Hmm, if that was reality im sure many men would be VERY happy...

People get holed up in a house for 2 months, slowly and systematically getting evicted until the last one left get a million... althought thier behaviour within the house may be to some extent 'realistic', i am rather sure that many people would pursue legal action if they were evicted from thier tenancy for no reason.

I personally despise reality television, but as taw and esq have already stated, it appeals to the lowest common denominator, which, unfortunately, is that majorority of the population that lack the mental faculties to be anything other than drooling fanpeople for 'reality' television (Well, the majority of the viewers anyway). It gets the TV station moola by the bucketload, while that intillectuals of the population slowly have thier retinas and brain cells burned away as they are forced to watch such sub-standard shoddy television by thier significant other(s).

However, the ideas are infinitely better than soap operas... *shudder*
It is a sure sign of ludicrous storylining when you need that characters to tell you what thier intentions and motives are every second of thier life, out loud!
'whats that? your cheating on me with my brother and his dog? and your planning to kill me? oh well, i'll just ignore your talking to yourself in the middle of the room, perfectly within earshot about aformentioned subject'

Both subjects i have the ultimate contempt for, and are the inevitable sign of the collapse and deterioration of Free-to-Air television.
It appears that The ninth Season of Stargate will not be shown until FEBRUARY 2007! its ludicrous, ch. 7 advertised the pilot for Atlantis endlessly, showed a few episodes, beofre pusing it slowly back until about 10:30 PM, and then stopped showing it altogether.
ch.10 did the same this with the new series of Battlestar Galactica , only they shopped thiers at around 11:30 PM.
Neither stations have shown the successive seasons to those shows either, even though they have been released MONTHS ago (Atlantis season two as early as July last year).

Ok, rant over

You know whats scarry? That reality TV is too close to the current reality in the world. Seems TLR is the only sain(sp) place to be. We are so use to documentrys, and fiction show what as they say, "Truth is stranger than fiction".

the one I hated the most was the one where a bunch of lads had to persuade a woman to date them, but she was in fact a transsexual. Nothing wrong with her being a transsexual, it was the expolitation that I resented and the portrayal of her as just a sex object and the men as a bunch of idiots - it was invasive and cynical. but what next? a reality Tv show where men compete to get a woman up the stick? (i think that's actually been done now) Having your baby as a reality Tv show? I think thats been done too. It's really very very sick, akin to the Truman Show which isnt that far from the truth anymore.

The only one I ever watched and enjoyed was SAS Jungle Survivor because they really did have to make do in miserable conditions being treated like rubbish by the instructors, who took a clearly sadistic glee in humiliating them (just like the real Army!) If you got to the last stages of that then you were a cut above the normal plonker, I know I couldn't do it. Ugh, my basic way back when was bad enough, I'd never willingly volunteer to do anything like it again. One of the things I particularly liked about the show is that the contestants got no financial reward, it was entirely for kudos and self-respect. Makes a difference imo, unlike Makosi and Kermal prancing about on Big Brother.

which brings me back to a point i made earlier; what i liked about SAS Survivor is that the contestants couldn't hide behind any front, it laid them bare for what they were, whether they had what it takes or not. And that presumably is why most of them entered it. Pop Idol, X-Factor etc pander to the false perception that you can be anything you want to be, when in fact you cannot. You cant make a silk purse from a sows ear, you can't make a talent out of someone who is talentless. If you can't sing, you can't sing, game over. The pop industry can and does make stars out of relatively talentless people, but how many of them stay the course? you can't fool all the people all of the time. If you can't sing you have to have some other talent to make it, Madonna is a lousy singer but she puts on a great show and she's made her career on showmanship. But she's had to re-invent herself over and over in order to keep herself up at the top.

As for the reality tv show winners, Pop Idol stars etc, how long do they last? a year, 2 years? Kym Marsh from Hear'Say is reduced to panto now, she's in Mother Goose in our town theatre. They're just manufactured and churned out and milked for every penny the record labels, producers, agents and media can get out of them. these talent shows are an integral part of the mass entertainment machine. if you look right and you're a hit with the viewers, it doesn't matter if you're no good. hence why I say its entirely superficial. its just a popularity contest.



Edited by - Tawakalna on 1/20/2006 5:57:06 AM

You guys make some valid points about reality TV in general, but I'm just talking about American Idol. Don't you think it's funny to see dumb people get their dreams crushed? I don't generally enjoy watching the misfortunes of others, only when the misfortunes are self-inflicted, or due to stupidity. For example, I love reading Darwin Award accounts, I would never support getting rid of dumb people, but I think it's perfectly fine for them to get rid of themselves. American Idol is starting it's 5th season. Chances are, all the contestants watched earlier shows and watched people who thought they were great, and then the judges said they sucked. I want to know if these people say to themselves, "boy that guy stunk, and he was too dumb to know it. Maybe I stink too, and I don't know it, no, that's crazy-talk! I'm the best ever." I know that I sing good enough to sing in church with everyone else, but I wouldn't have a chance to get on American Idol, so I wouldn't flip out if the judges told me I couldn't move on. Are these people too dumb to reason out that if thousands of people try out, their chances are really small to get on the show?

Let's get those missiles ready to destroy the universe!!

I can't deny that even i get a degree of malicious glee out of watching their silly little bubbles being burst, but it's not something I really enjoy. As i said, i feel like I'm being manipulated, and doesn't that make me as dumb as the people I'm laughing at?

besides, I think both cases are true, yours that they genuinely believe they are that good, and your friend's that they play up for the cameras.

now if instead of getting evicted /voted off ............................
no that would be cruel...........i mean why should we allow 1 z list celeb to li....
when another cant .............
mmmmm wait a minute why should we let 1 z list celeb live ?

American Idol was a hit here in New Zealand and I believe there were many incarnations of it all over the world, and unfortunately there was one here too. We even had one in our school. The people who weren't good enough were humiliated by the large crowd, I don't know how they got the courage to go up there. I believe the fools who go on camera and try to audition with obviously poor singing ability really do think they have what it takes. There may be the odd exception but generally people delude themselves into thinking they are what they're not.

I also agree with Taw about the whole Western Society thing, but unfortunately it's all we've got. Generally the other systems are unworkable because of human nature. At least there is some freedom in our society, even if it is an illusion.