Fluff and Toenails: Mainstream Media, Indie Opinion

Above all of the fluff and the toenails floats a melody, some rhythms, flickering pictures, a sensation to be had. Capture it in your computer, buy it on your high street or cram it in your senses from hijacked radio waves. Our subject is everywhere so let us pick at it like a favourite scab.

Monday will find me blogging on TV, Thursday on Film and the Weekends on Music.

Sunday, 13 March 2011

Wonders of the Depravity of Reality Tv Producers.

I'm back! What do you mean was I gone? I've been gone for weeks and your saying that you didn't even notice that I was away! Well that's just fine! No I mean it. Fine! To make up for my being away for so long this post was going to be epic. It was going to make you laugh and then cry. It was going to contain a nipple slip and a clip of a symphony that I have composed made up entirely of brown notes and notes oscillating at a frequency that would tickle you pleasure centre like a dildo covered in sexy ants. And only then, after your cacophony of shitting ecstasy, would you get a pissey review of a film with which to remind your selves how lost you were without my guidance.

But seeing as though you have barely noticed my being away (I have web statistics as evidence) I will proceed straight on to the reviews with none of the aforementioned grandstanding.

TV is awful at the moment. Usually I have around four shows with which I try to keep up with but at the moment that number is down to just one, that being the reintroduction of Prof Brian Cox and his wonders of the universe. The wonder of wonders is the wonderful way in which it avoids dumbing down. Brian Cox stands behind you coaxing you along “come on, you can do this, I know it's hard but trust me, stick with it look, see, you do get it you cleaver bastard. Now go down to the pub and talk about the reverse entropy involved in downing a pint. Go on your friends will love you for it.”

At the other end of the scale there has been a slightly worrying trend in reality competition TV. That being the inclusion of additional elements into the mix making shows all the more convoluted and often sinister. In the early days of reality TV we had shows like Airport. Where we followed the lives of those working in the airport. There were no winners, no losers, the show took a loose documentary format and became what was termed a docusoap. Were that to be broadcast now the passengers on the plane would probably vote on the quality of trolley dolly service with the winner receiving a book deal and a meals on wheels franchise and the looser being ejected from the plane some where over Greenland.

This week my attention was drawn towards a frankly frightening program broadcast some where deep in the realms of Sky TV. I am going to outline the concept of the program, but you wont believe me. You are probably going to think that I have ripped off a joke from Allan Partrige or Jack Donaghy, but I haven't. It is true, every word of it.



The Show is called Bridalplasty and it combines elements from The Generation Game, America's Next Top Model, Big Brother, The Apprentice, Extreme Make Over, Amazon DOT com and The Book of Revelation. Brides to be live together in a house and vote weekly to get rid of the other brides until one remains and is declared the winner. So far, so standard. This is where it starts to get what can only be described as 'fucked up.' Each of the 'brides to be' has a grizzly 'wish list' of plastic surgery. These typically contain nose jobs, boob enlargements, tummy tucks, face lifts and other stuff that I don't know about nor care to discuss. Each week there are a series of generation game style challenges, the episode I was subjected to had quite a quaint game in which the brides were presented with two of various foods associated with weddings, one of which was of a premium variety and the other was from a dollar store with a little extra ingredient such as compost in the cake. The brides would then have to successfully identify the quality product. Imagine this on Bruce Forsyth's generation game and you will see smiles and gentle encouragement from the host and fellow contestants alike. Not so on Bridalplasty! The host berates the contestants and keeps asserting that the purpose of the game (or test as she refers to it) is to determine who is the classiest and who is trash. Footage of the game is intersected by cut-aways of contestants bad mouthing each other in interviews recorded after the event. The winner of the competition becomes top bride for the week is whisked away to have her surgery and can't be voted out that week. Later she is returned to the house to stay in the recovery room (usually looking something like Frankenstein's monster, cue more bitching). Then some kind of vote takes place and one bride is eliminated. In the long run those eliminated early are unquestioningly the winner as they get to return to their fiancé unscathed by surgery.

I don't think the show requires a review the above description will suffice.

Don't have nightmares.

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