ANGRY MOB

'The Victorian freak show never went away, now it’s called Big Brother or X Factor where, in the preliminary rounds, we wheel out the bewildered to be sniggered at by multi-millionaires.'
Andy Millman (Ricky Gervais, Extras)

Britain's Got Talent is supposed to be just another talent show to fuel our obsession with the fleeting chance of becoming a celebrity - the holy grail for many people. Yet, as Andy Millman so wonderfully points out in a rare moment of quality TV comedy-drama, the modern talent show puts a far darker spin on the process of seeking fame.

Susan Boyle was the perfect person to demonstrate the janiform nature of the modern TV talent show. It gave producers the chance to wind-up the viewer's expectation that Susan Boyle was another 'pathetically deluded' individual who wanted to be a 'singer'. Cut to sneering audience, cynical judges and Ant and Dec waiting to lead the mocking abuse meted out to all those that don't share Susan Boyle's happy ending.

'You'se didn't expect that did you, did you, no.' crows either Ant or Dec (whose sole talent is the ability to be consistently bland and inoffensive) after the first few words are sung. Well no, but then you didn't want us to.

The program introduced Susan Boyle with the horn music that normally accompanies someone considered an oddball (who then goes on to perform some terrible act before declaring that the judges are 'crazy' not to see his or her talent and so on).

The program is then edited to clearly show that Susan Boyle is just another mad women who lives alone with her cat, has never been kissed and looks older than she is (cut to Simon Cowell raising eyebrows in shock horror). Meanwhile, Ant and Dec mock from the sides of the stage, wriggling their hips mimicking the nervous Susan Boyle. Clearly, we should be expecting Susan Boyle to embarrass herself so we can all have a cheap laugh, smugly sit back and think about just how superior we are.

But of course, Susan Boyle has a staggering voice, so the program instead uses her to show the audience that talent comes when you least expect it, and how dare the audience rush to make such a judgement. However, there is a big problem with this: considering how Britain's got Talent delights in the freak show format of the early shows, how can they be hypocritical enough to chide the reader for judging people?

That Ant or Dec has the gall to point a finger at the audience for judging Susan Boyle, when the program they present is built around the tried and tested formula of giving the audience freaks to mock, is indicative of the vacuum that exists between the ears of both of them. How quick they forget that before and after Susan Boyle came on and sang it is their job to help lead people towards a negative judgement, to help lead the audience in mocking the 'bewildered'.

So please forgive the audience, Ant or Dec, for expecting to be served up another freak for them to mock. For this is the real purpose of the preliminary shows, as the Guardian points out: 

 As Ricky Gervais points out: the Victorian freak show never went away, it has become Britain's Got Talent and other shows that spend their first few episodes laughing at the vulnerable.

This brings us to the point of mentioning Ricky Gervais in this post. As David Brent, Ricky Gervais created the perfect study of how TV programmes create freaks. The Office was created to demonstrate how documentary producers often provide us with a 'freak' to mock; in much the same way that circus masters would wheel out conjoined twins to the gasps or abuse of a Victorian audience.

At the end of the Office, Ricky Gervais shows us that David Brent is not a bad person, he may be deluded with a enlarged sense of his own importance, but is this enough of a reason for a TV producer to put him onto TV simply to be mocked by the audience? Watching David Brent (and the Office) is sometimes an awkward and cringe worthy experience because we subconsciously realise that we are never laughing with him, always at him.

What we actually watch is a man slowly fall apart, lose his job and flirt with depression - all in the name of a documentary about an Paper Merchant's Office in Slough.

When we tune in to the early rounds of Britain's got Talent we feel the same emotions. Perhaps we appreciate that we are simply laughing at people whose dreams - no matter how unrealistic - are being shattered before our eyes. The program makers give a person a chance of a lifetime just so they can record the jeers of the audience and the pained expression on the face of the individual as their hopes and dreams are crushed in hails of laughter on prime time TV.

Andy Millman's rant against the 'gutter press' and TV exploitation of the 'bewildered' is merely directly vocalising Ricky Gervais' earlier attack (via The Office) on exploitative documentaries that are disguised as 'human interest' stories or 'factual documentaries'. Whether it is documentaries about the incredibly fat, or a man who eats badgers, TV producers are instinctively looking for the next weirdo they can stick on TV to be stared at by millions in the comfort and safety of their own lounges.

And the audience, seemingly, can't get enough.

End of Part 1

Part 2: Is Susan Boyle a freak? The 'hairy angel' and the tabloid media