Back to Reality
It truly is January. It feels like life is returning to normality at the moment. The decorations are down, the festivities are over and the grim realities of life once again fade into view. It is also absolutely freezing, and as I look out of my window I see the trees have become a very wintery white. The final nail in the coffin for me is the start of the Reality TV year which ended with ‘Strictly Come X-Factoring’ or something of the like, and has begun again with Celebrity Big Brother. Or Celebrity cash and fame grab as I like to call it.
The house contains the usual array of has-beens, who-the-hell-are-they’s, oh-no-not-hims, and Coolio (you know the Rapper…). Now normally this simultaneous celebration and degradation of fame would usually piss me off, and I would argue “why do we dish out the term celebrity to anyone who has been on TV for five minutes,” but that is not what bothers me about the charade. What annoys me more is the over exuberant, screechy, hyping host of the eviction show. That’s right it’s Davina “THIS IS GREAT TV!!” McCall. Thankfully this year she isn’t pregnant, and putting on a false air of professionalism, that the show MUST go on, like she usually does (although considering the rapidly expanding McCall family, I’m sure it won’t be long before the next spawn comes along and Reality TV is guaranteed another generation of annoying over-excited idiots for presenters). We all know it’s for show, and to prompt the will she won’t she give birth on air question, which just about sums up society’s ills.
However whilst Davina isn’t with child this time, there’s still the small problem that she is there at all. Watching Davina is kind of like having a younger relative around, the kind that wants to play ALL the time and seems to revel in celebrating the mundane or the underwhelming as if it is a cure for cancer. I realise this is all part of the job for a presenter, but really can she just calm down a touch and for once not pretend that she’s better than the people she’s mocking on the show.
The point of Davina I guess is to be one-of-us, you know one of the “sane” people who watch the “insane” housemates and laugh at them as one would have laughed at a loony in the insane asylums of the 19th century. Now I love a laugh at a loony (especially a loony who has effectively committed himself as the housemates have) as much as the next man but what makes Davina one-of-us? She clearly is deranged after all. Before the first show, she bounds around the Big Brother house twittering with glee at the fixtures and fittings (I have never seen a woman so excited by a sink in my life), and then on the day of evictions she screams “I’m coming to get you!” at the top of her lungs. I can see why Charlie Brooker used this line in his zombie horror serial Dead Set as there is something sinister about that sentence. Also could I just point out that its bullshit saying that, as really she doesn’t come to get the housemates at all but rather they come to her? Of course it has to be all about her, we wouldn’t want the viewership forgetting Davina is there, as pleasant relief as that would be.
The thing is also that she seems to try too hard and tries to be our “mate” to the point of it being patronising. I can tell you if Davina was my mate I would probably move to Alaska or Siberia or anywhere as remote and inhospitable as possible so I wouldn’t have to suffer this idiot on a regular basis. Can you imagine going to the pub with her? First of all she would react with excitement at the presence of the beer towels (and let’s not even talk about what will happen when she discovers the IT-Box) then she would start gleefully laughing when the pub runs out of salt and vinegar crisps, as it would remind her of the shopping tasks on the show. Then for the grand finale she would probably shout “I’m coming to get you!” when it comes to kicking-out time. I wonder if she used that line on dates or when she’s picks up her children from school?
A better idea is to infect the house with rabies, either that or show them what Davina has been saying about them, or prompting the public to say about them, and then throw Davina to the baying, snarling housemates to be ripped to shreds whilst screaming about “how great it is”. Now that would make good TV!
The house contains the usual array of has-beens, who-the-hell-are-they’s, oh-no-not-hims, and Coolio (you know the Rapper…). Now normally this simultaneous celebration and degradation of fame would usually piss me off, and I would argue “why do we dish out the term celebrity to anyone who has been on TV for five minutes,” but that is not what bothers me about the charade. What annoys me more is the over exuberant, screechy, hyping host of the eviction show. That’s right it’s Davina “THIS IS GREAT TV!!” McCall. Thankfully this year she isn’t pregnant, and putting on a false air of professionalism, that the show MUST go on, like she usually does (although considering the rapidly expanding McCall family, I’m sure it won’t be long before the next spawn comes along and Reality TV is guaranteed another generation of annoying over-excited idiots for presenters). We all know it’s for show, and to prompt the will she won’t she give birth on air question, which just about sums up society’s ills.
However whilst Davina isn’t with child this time, there’s still the small problem that she is there at all. Watching Davina is kind of like having a younger relative around, the kind that wants to play ALL the time and seems to revel in celebrating the mundane or the underwhelming as if it is a cure for cancer. I realise this is all part of the job for a presenter, but really can she just calm down a touch and for once not pretend that she’s better than the people she’s mocking on the show.
The point of Davina I guess is to be one-of-us, you know one of the “sane” people who watch the “insane” housemates and laugh at them as one would have laughed at a loony in the insane asylums of the 19th century. Now I love a laugh at a loony (especially a loony who has effectively committed himself as the housemates have) as much as the next man but what makes Davina one-of-us? She clearly is deranged after all. Before the first show, she bounds around the Big Brother house twittering with glee at the fixtures and fittings (I have never seen a woman so excited by a sink in my life), and then on the day of evictions she screams “I’m coming to get you!” at the top of her lungs. I can see why Charlie Brooker used this line in his zombie horror serial Dead Set as there is something sinister about that sentence. Also could I just point out that its bullshit saying that, as really she doesn’t come to get the housemates at all but rather they come to her? Of course it has to be all about her, we wouldn’t want the viewership forgetting Davina is there, as pleasant relief as that would be.
The thing is also that she seems to try too hard and tries to be our “mate” to the point of it being patronising. I can tell you if Davina was my mate I would probably move to Alaska or Siberia or anywhere as remote and inhospitable as possible so I wouldn’t have to suffer this idiot on a regular basis. Can you imagine going to the pub with her? First of all she would react with excitement at the presence of the beer towels (and let’s not even talk about what will happen when she discovers the IT-Box) then she would start gleefully laughing when the pub runs out of salt and vinegar crisps, as it would remind her of the shopping tasks on the show. Then for the grand finale she would probably shout “I’m coming to get you!” when it comes to kicking-out time. I wonder if she used that line on dates or when she’s picks up her children from school?
A better idea is to infect the house with rabies, either that or show them what Davina has been saying about them, or prompting the public to say about them, and then throw Davina to the baying, snarling housemates to be ripped to shreds whilst screaming about “how great it is”. Now that would make good TV!
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