I’m not reality TV, I’m not ITV2, and I’m simply not interested in watching posh/rich/shallow people bumble through their lives without a care in the world, which is why I’m annoyed that yet another vacuous docusoap has graced our TV schedules with its presence.
Made in Chelsea is the latest addition to this new craze of fly on the wall documentary dramas following the lives of ‘ordinary’ people. It centres around some of London’s young elite, and affords viewers a ‘candid’ (not scripted scenarios in the slightest), triple-A insight into the way they live their rich and glamorous lives. Do we really need (or for that matter want) another?
Perhaps I’m just being a grumpy northerner (again), but I don’t understand why anyone would want to watch a bunch of pretentious, attention seeking rahs humiliating themselves as they bitch, whine and show you their IQ using just one hand.
I can't speak for the entire viewing populating, but I find this type of programming quite embarassing to watch, frankly. I cringe and wonder whether these people ever see themselves on TV and realise that they are being exploited, or simply just clap along obliviously going ‘look mum, I’m on the telly, letting the watching world know about the fact that I cheated on my boyfriend’.
The only reason I could see anyone enjoying this type of programme is so that they can breathe a sigh of relief, sit back and think ‘thank God I’m not like that’. And, have a good old laugh at the ridiculousness of it all.
If so (and I am in no way trying to stick up for these ‘characters’ because it is their own choice to lay themselves on the line) isn’t this kind of TV playing into the already problematic and increasingl faceless, nameless bullying that avatars and anonymous profiles on sites like YouTube have initiated. (Think I'm overreacting? Check out some of the bitching going down on Twitter). We shouldn’t be encouraged to sit and judge people we don’t know from the comfort of our own homes, regardless of how ridiculous they may be.
I thought Channel 4 had come up with an antidote to these kind of shows with its revolutionary reality series Seven Days, where viewer could interact on comment upon the action, but that seems to have been bumped this year in favour of this increasingly popular, but ultimately shallow and inane format. Shame.
I’d like finish this tirade by picking out a few ‘highlight’ lines of tonight’s first episode, to give those of you who missed it and were possibly thinking about catching up on 4od a reason never to tune in:
‘My hair used to be exceptional and it’s going downhill’
‘Charles Dickens wrote Pride and Prejudice...Roald Dahl wrote Winnie the Pooh’
'Last I heard he was like, doing some like, diamond mining or something'
'Topshop is definitely a turn off...High Street shopping is definitely not allowed under any circumstances, ever'
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