People seem to be obsessed with a programme called The X Factor-a glorified karaoke competition. A programme that helps stop real artists' music getting across. A programme that completely destroys the point of making music. People watch this and judge.
There was a programme called Big Brother which has thankfully now ended. In this there were a load of attention seeking, desperate for fame people in a house. That was it. That was the whole thing of what it was about. People in a house. People would watch this and judge.
There are numerous programmes that are shown throughout the daytime where it seems that people put their whole dignity on the line. Programmes such as The Jerry Springer or the Jeremy Kyle show. In these shows, people attempt to "solve" their problems by revealing to the world their deep personal issues (eg the other day it was on in work and some guy had slept with his brothers' wife and gotten her pregnant-the wife didn't know whos' baby it was). The host of the show would then degrade and belittle whoever he thought would please the audience. People watch this and judge-as well as claiming that they watch these kind of programmes to "feel better about themselves".
Just over 8 years ago before The Commonwealth Games event took place in Manchester, a very horrific, sickening thing happened in the town in which I live in. A family got murdered. It took me 3 full weeks to actually find out the details as when I looked in the national newspaper the next day, there was a 12 page special on Big Brother but no news on this murder. In the news and the local paper, there still was no information about this. I wondered maybe the reason why it didn't make the news was because I live in a small town but why not the local paper?? Some people later explained to me that they couldn't print something so horrific whilst The Commonwealth Games were about to start in the same city. Then 3 weeks later, there was a short bit in the local newspaper about what had happened. And as awful and as sickening as this murder was, the real disturbing fact about it I will tell later.
When I was in college at the time, I was studying Theatre Studies and one of our projects was to do a performance on anything we wanted. Any subject whatsoever that interested us. I wanted to explore why people were so interested in programmes like Big Brother. What made people watch these kind of shows?? Why were they so interested in things like watching people behave like idiots in a house?? If they wanted to see a karaoke competition, why not just go to a real one in a pub and actually see them sing?? Why are people so interested in watching other people humiliate themselves?? Rather than wanting to actually help them, they would prefer to just laugh at them. Why was something so horrific that happened so close to me just ignored?? At the time, I didn't understand. In some ways, I don't think I ever will.
My performance was so surreal. I set up a huge projector and had a recording of Entertainment Tonight and clips of other "celebrity" programmes showing on it. Next to it, I had a very small TV set up with what I considered to be actual news and events that are important to all of us. Then I had a huge table set up on the side with a load of newspaper cuttings of celebrity things (this included the 12 page Big Brother special along with many other related things). Then strewn across the floor, I had newspaper cuttings that were just small paragraphs (one of them being the story about the murder which was at most just 60 words) about things that were again, what I considered real important news. Plus I wrote a few very short scripts that I got my classmates to act out in a melodramatic "celebrity style" way. I barricaded all the seating and the idea was that when the audience walk in, they would see all this, would be unable to sit down and therefore actually be in the middle of all this which was supposed to represent that society is kind of forcing us all to focus on things that really aren't important and people become oblivious to things that are maybe more important and there was nothing anyone could do about it. However when some of the audience walked in, some of them tried to take the barricades on the seating down! They then sat on the floor not knowing what to do for about 10 minutes taking it all in. I thought I had failed miserably in what I was trying to put across and had to leave the room with my head down. But apparently, while they were all talking about my performance afterwards, they eventually understood what I was trying to do and the feedback I got was brilliant. Them not realising what was going on made the whole point of it work as that what I was trying to get across.
This performance was shortly done after I found out all the details about the murder and who was the culprit-it was a member of their own family. He was jailed for life.
