i-want-more

That's entertainment

It's been a while since I posted on the blog while ill. It's been an exceptionally healthy year for me, which is astonishing, considering everything I've been through. However, I suppose there had to come a point when my body would decide to call it quits. So I'm sat sweating in the back bedroom, with aching kidneys, hoping that I can get back to normal soon.

The past few days have been beautifully autumnal. I wish I was out walking through the leaves right now. As it is, I'm so feeble it's as much as I can do to shuffle about the flat. Being up here amongst the trees does wonders, though. As much as I want to feel sorry for myself - and I do, a bit - I keep looking out and remembering how lucky I am.

Anyway. There was something I wished to say about Simon Pegg.

I bought Mr Pegg's book Nerd Do Well last week. I've long been a fan of his work, so thought I would enjoy the book. Well, I don't know what I was expecting exactly, but it came up a little short in my estimation. And the following extract from an early chapter actively pissed me right off. Not a good start.

To set the scene: Pegg is talking about TV reality and talent shows, and how The X Factor isn't so different from New Faces, on which his father appeared in the 1970s.

The X Factor isn't a million miles from Channel 4's nineties car-crash magazine show The Word, hosted by Terry Christian, in which people desperate to appear on television would eat bulls' testicles and lick pensioners' armpits as part if a segment poignantly entitled 'The Hopefuls'. The makers of contemporary talent shows know there will always be a supply of hopefuls, whose need for facile validation far outweighs their fear of public failure as a means of attaining the moment of exposure they feel entitled to. In light of this conveyor belt of catastrophe, Warhol's famous prediction seems overly generous.

As many of you will know, I was one of these desperate for fame individuals that Pegg describes above, having appeared on The Hopefuls as a fresh-faced 21-year old in 1994. So, allow me to pick the above statement apart.

1) I'm not sure that you can compare The X Factor to The Word. One is a money-making machine first, and a TV show second. The other was an utterly shambolic late night TV show, in which anything could (and often did) happen. That's not to say that The Word wasn't flawed - it was, in many ways. So is The X Factor, but I'd rather not get into that here.

2) To some extent, I agree that there will always be a supply of people to populate TV reality/talent shows. However, it's key to remember this: when I was on The Hopefuls, there was absolutely nothing on TV that compared to it. If I was much cleverer than I am, I could sit and argue about how the segment of the show tried to deconstruct the idea of what was acceptable viewing, or what fame in itself actually is. But if I'm being honest, it was silly, and mindless, and that was the fun of it. That's essentially it. I did it for nothing more than the sheer bloody fun of it. I didn't do it because I was desperate for fame or recognition. Come on. How could I ever think that behaving in such a deliberately disgusting way could get me either of those things? I wanted to make my friends, peers, family, teachers, whoever, laugh their arses off. How is this so different to the ambitious Mr Pegg, deciding to become a performance poet to make himself stand out from the crowd while in his first year of University? I didn't go on to make a career out of licking cottage cheese out of a fat man's bellybutton - so how was I desperate for fame, exactly? I clearly wasn't as desperate for it as Mr Pegg was...

3) I wasn't settling for public failure to expose myself, and I didn't feel that I was entitled to fame. Likewise - there are many people who have appeared on reality/talent shows for nothing other than they wanted to have fun. We're back to that concept again - enjoying yourself.

4) I often joked that my appearance on The Word was my "fifteen seconds of fame". Using Warhol to prop this flimsy argument up is a teeny bit obvious. And from where I'm standing, Warhol loved the idea of people having their fifteen minutes, so it doesn't follow that his "prediction" is "overly generous". Seconds or minutes, it's a moot point.

5) "In light of this conveyor belt of catastrophe..." Jesus - how melodramatic is the opening of that sentence?! [Well, actually, compared to his later deconstruction of the Star Wars films, during which I almost yawned myself to death, this is actually quite lively stuff.]

As usual, my meanderings are neither well-reasoned nor coherent (I blame the Lemsip wearing off), but let me finish by saying this. It simply doesn't follow that ordinary people who appear on TV are looking for fame or validation. Some of them are simply doing it for the hell of it. Our lives are pissy and drab and miserable...why the heck shouldn't we entertain ourselves? If other folk can't manage it, why the hell shouldn't we have a try?

Labels: simon pegg, still ill, tv

posted by deafdisco @ 1:46 pm