Ah, reality. So malleable. I've seen a few documentaries and reality shows in my day, and I always enjoy watching how the filmmakers set about shaping "characters" and narratives from carefully chosen bits and pieces of footage, dialog and narration.
Take Susan Boyle, one of the hottest celebrities in the Western World since her appearance on BBC ITV's "Britain's Got Talent" last Saturday -- a performance that has now been seen by untold millions on YouTube. (One clip alone -- several are posted -- registers nearly 14 million views as I write this; a similar one of Paul Potts, the opera-singing mobile phone salesman from 2007, shows nearly 44 million views.)
If you haven't seen it yet, watch this version, which shows how Boyle's audition was set up for the television audience. (Is this show broadcast live, or edited later? How many cameras do they have in that auditorium? Watch how the reaction shots are inserted.) After making a joke about the one thing that's been missing from Glasgow is "talent," the hosts introduce the rather frumpy looking Boyle with comical music and a shot of her taking a big bite out of a sandwich. "Next up is a contestant who says she has what it takes to put Glasgow on the map," they say. The offscreen audience laughs. She's from West Lothian, 47 years old, unemployed but looking, never married ("Never been kissed," she says, "Shame -- but that's not an advert!").
And so, Boyle takes center stage, a nervous but cheeky amateur at the talent show. The judges ooze condescension. The crowd smacks its lips and rolls its eyes, nearly salivating when she says her dream has always been to have a professional singing career like Elaine Paige, England's Betty Buckley. Everybody's ready to take her down -- hard. What fun that will be, right? The music begins ("I Dreamed a Dream" from "Les Miserables," which she pronounces with the "s" at the end). She stands stiffly. And then she lets loose the voice.
It's a great punch line, and she knows exactly how to deliver it. Offstage, the emcees look directly into the camera and one of them wags a finger in our faces: "You didn't expect that, did you? Did you? No!" They (and she) knew it all along, of course, and had cleverly misled us into thinking Boyle was a pathetic nut job with delusions of grandeur. So, now they're proud of having faked us out? Teaching us all a lesson? What lesson?
Anyway, from this point on it's reaction shots galore -- the screen held up as a mirror of viewers' faces at home: Simon Cowell smiling at the way his staff have pulled off this practical joke (he's been had, but his eyes are sparkling with a certain "Ca-ching!"); women welling up with inspiration; men shaking their heads in wonder... Not only do you have the soaring Broadway melody, but the lyrics of Boyle's chosen song become autobiographical and transformative in this moment:
I had a dream my life would be
So different from the hell I'm living
So different now from what it seemed
Now life has killed the dream I dreamed
It's the song we're meant to imagine she could have sung... right up until the moment she started singing. And as she sings it, she steps into the dream, lives it, and brings it alive for her audience. She uses the show to rescue herself from a humdrum existence! The underdog triumphs! The ugly duckling reveals her inner musical swan! It's an unsubtly crafted moment of vintage melodramatic showbiz hokum, manufactured for "reality TV."
And it works splendidly -- because Susan Boyle is not only talented, but skilled. I'm not sure which is more offensive: the way she was regarded before she sang or the way she has been portrayed since. Though treated by the judges and the press as if she were an emotionally and intellectually impaired child from the hinterlands, she is someone to be admired, not pitied or patronized with snidely sanctimonious comments about how "you can't judge a book by its cover." The show relies on the inherent entertainment value of those kinds of preconceptions -- and only reinforces them by occasionally overturning them, just for fun. Boyle is this year's exception that proves the rule and buoys the ratings. Notice how they keep playing the orchestral music after her performance (in the hall itself, or just for the TV audience?), to milk the emotion for all it's worth.
Meanwhile, the pompous moralism of the mainstream media continues to pander and insult. Like this, from a sanctimonious editorial by Colette Douglas Home in The Herald is headlined "The beauty that matters is always on the inside":
Susan Boyle's story is a parable of our age. She is a singer of enormous talent, who cared for her widowed mother until she died two years ago. Susan's is a combination of ability and virtue that deserves congratulation.
So how come she was treated as a laughing stock when she walked on stage for the opening heat of Britain's Got Talent 2009 on Saturday night? [...]
It was rude and cruel and arrogant. Susan Boyle from Blackburn, West Lothian, was presumed to be a buffoon. But why?
Why? Because that's the storyline the makers of "Britain's Got Talent" built around her, that's why. She was discovered at an earlier audition and the producers no doubt knew they had the makings of great TV on their hands if they presented her correctly -- which meant misleading us so that the switcheroo would have maximum emotional impact. Not that Boyle isn't the genuine article and exactly who she appears to be, but the manner in which she and her story have been shaped and presented for television (and YouTube) is at least as important as her story itself. (Anybody remember what the McCain campaign and Fox News did with Joe the Plumber? Unfortunately, for the Republicans, he turned out not to be the "average Joe" for whom he was initially [mis-]taken. Not that that stopped anyone from pretending.)
Collette Douglas Home has her own theory about why the audience was primed to dismiss and ridicule Boyle:
The answer is that only the pretty are expected to achieve. Not only do you have to be physically appealing to deserve fame; it seems you now have to be good-looking to merit everyday common respect. If, like Susan (and like millions more), you are plump, middle-aged and too poor or too unworldly to follow fashion or have a good hairdresser, you are a non-person.
The condescension in this paragraph is palpable and distasteful. You'd think from some of the press descriptions of Susan Boyle's appearance that she was the Elephant Woman dressed in rags. Maybe from Home's point of view that makes for a better story:
It was an unglamorous existence. She wasn't the glamorous type -- and being a carer isn't a glamorous life, as the hundreds of thousands who do that most valuable of jobs will testify. Even those who start out with a beauty routine and an interest in clothes find themselves reverting to the practicality of a tracksuit and trainers. Fitness plans get interrupted and then abandoned. Weight creeps on. Carers don't often get invited to sparkling dinner parties or glitzy receptions, so smart clothes rarely make it off the hanger.
Then, when a special occasion comes along, they might reach, as Susan did, for the frock they bought for a nephew's wedding. They might, as she did, compound the felony of choosing a colour at odds with her skin tone and an unflattering shape with home-chopped hair, bushy eyebrows and a face without a hint of make-up. But it is often evidence of a life lived selflessly; of a person so focused on the needs of another that they have lost sight of themselves. Is that a cause for derision or a reason for congratulation? Would her time have been better spent slimming and exercising, plucking and waxing, bleaching and botoxing? Would that have made her voice any sweeter?
Now we get to the heart of the matter. This isn't about Susan Boyle. This is about how people like Colette Douglas Home want to feel about themselves when they look down upon Susan Boyle.
All I know about Boyle is what I've seen and read on the Internets. I wish her all the best in the contest and, although it won't be easy, I hope she can avoid being made into somebody else's object lesson.
That's kind of what happened to Josh Rushing, whom I was delighted to meet -- completely by accident -- when we shared a student-volunteer-driven car from the Denver airport to Boulder for the Conference on World Affairs last week. He was a 14-year Marine and a press officer for Central Command in Dohar during Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003. He granted an hour-long interview for what he thought was supposed to be a student project, but which wound up as a major part of "Control Room." Rushing first discovered the existence of the documentary by Jehane Noujaim, about Al Jazeera coverage of the war, when it played the Sundance Film Festival the next January and received considerable publicity. The single interview he had given had been edited into a structure for the film, presented as if the views he expressed had evolved over months. I'd seen the movie and been quite impressed by it, but I didn't recognize him from seeing that film five years ago.
So, he became the star of a controversial movie, without even knowing he had participated in the making of a movie. That interview radically changed his life. When the film was released, and Rushing's superiors ordered him not to speak about it, he decided to leave the Marines. He is now a correspondent for Al Jazeera International, covering conflicts around the world. But even when he was at CentCom he believed that Al Jazeera -- the first non-government-run Arabic satellite channel in the region -- was, as he wrote in his book "Mission Al Jazeera: Build a Bridge, Seek the Truth, Change the World," "our only opportunity to reach the audience we most needed to reach: the Arab people." In "Control Room," as a CentCom spokesman, he explains that the approaches of Al Jazeera and Fox News are essentially the same, selective in what they emphasize to address the interests of their target audiences. In other words, "fair and balanced" means that coverage is skewed to conform to viewers' political prejudices -- although factual information may also be conveyed. Historically, at least, the presentation of a range of views (and non-negotiable facts) has been much rarer in the Arab world than in the United States. (The Al Jazeera producer in the movie says, if he were offered a job with Fox he would take it -- "to turn the Arab nightmare into the American Dream.")
To me, Josh is an example of real courage and integrity, a man who stood up for what he believes and followed his conscience. He's probably doing more good for the American and Iraqi people now than when he was employed by the US government. He also strikes me as just a really cool, decent guy in general, somebody I found it easy and enlightening to talk to about everything from Iraq to gays in the priesthood to "No Country for Old Men." Here he is on The Daily Show:
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | M - Th 11p / 10c | |||
| Josh Rushing | ||||
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Finally, I met somebody else who knows something about how "documentary reality" is manipulated. Completely by accident one night my friend Linda and I wound up at Jax Fish House in Boulder. (I heartily recommend the Tuesday Blue Plate Special, New Zealand Bluenose on coconut rice with green curry.) The executive chef is Hosea Rosenberg, the man who just won "Top Chef" -- the only so-called "reality show" I watch! Like Josh, he was totally cool. When he saw that I recognized him (I pointed my Blackberry camera at him from my seat when I saw him standing in the open kitchen; I didn't want to bother him while he was working), he came over to our table and we talked for five or ten minutes about his life before, during and since the show. I mentioned I didn't like the "Real World" direction the show took this past season when they made a big melodramatic deal out of a kiss he shared with another contestant in the living quarters when they thought they were off-camera. It was distracting, it had nothing to do with the competition, and all it did was drop the show into the gutter and hurt people in their real off-screen lives. Needless to say, he agreed. He said he had just found himself fictionalized in Page Six gossip during a trip to New York. Even though "Top Chef" is over, he's still stuck in some kind of reality show.
Rosenberg had plenty to say -- as have other top chef participants -- about how the show is edited, and the interviews are guided, to create conflicts and emphasize certain aspects of the characters'/contestants' personalities. In fact, that's part of the fun of the show: watching how they do it. The makers of the show face the same challenge as the chefs, taking whatever's in the kitchen and transforming it into a tempting dish that looks good on the screen.
* * * *
UPDATE: This paragraph from a Guardian column by Tanya Gold ("It wasn't singer Susan Boyle who was ugly on Britain's Got Talent so much as our reaction to her") echoes some of my feelings about the self-congratulatory overreaction to Susan Boyle's wonderful performance last Saturday:
Susan will probably win Britain's Got Talent. She will be the little munter that could sing, served up for the British public every Saturday night. Look! It's "ugly"! It sings! And I know that we think that this will make us better people. But Susan Boyle will be the freakish exception that makes the rule. By raising this Susan up, we will forgive ourselves for grinding every other Susan into the dust. It will be a very partial and poisoned redemption.
Also: Boyle's first recording, a sultry 1999 rendition of "Cry Me a River" (think Julie London in "The Girl Can't Help It"), cut for a charity album.
"Susan, you are a little tiger, aren't you?"
"Oh, I don't know bout that, I don't know about that"
"You are. OK, moment of truth-"
The one commentator says she was cheeky when she got up there and said she wanted to be like Elaine Paige. Well, duh, she wants to be a singer, why is everybody so surprised she admires another singer? What's 'cheeky' to me is Simon's attempt at shallow flattery. "You're a little tiger." And then the "You are" after she says "Don't know bout that." For a moment the show's ugliness is on full display for those who catch it. He might as well be saying: "YOU ARE A LITTLE TIGER! YOU ARE! I SAY YOU ARE!" in the tone/volume of voice Ned Beatty uses in his hell-raising scene in "Network". But he doesn't use that cause then it would be obvious how sinister the show really is.
I hate TV.
Britain's Got Talent is actually shown on ITV1 (The UK's main commercial channel) not on the BBC. They haven't sunk quite that low yet (but their Andrew Lloyd Webber-backed rip-off shows have come pretty close).
Anyone who believes that reality shows depict reality is delusional.
I honestly think your contempt and anger at Home's article is misplaced. She's not ridiculing Boyle's looks, or trying to "sell" the pathos of the story, as the producers did. She's merely making a cultural observation that's true whether the show's producers manipulated the footage and audience or not (which of course they do).
You've confused Home's article with making the very sentiment it's lambasting. Her point is that both the audience and judges contempt AND praise were rooted in the assumptions they made about Boyle because of how she looked. Are you actually denying that's true?
Contempt before the performance because "she's frumpty, middle aged, and doesn't deserve a chance" ... praised to the skies after, because "Wow! She's frumpy, middle-aged and sings really well!" As if plain middle aged people have some sort of vocal disability.
Completely stupid - and both you and Home's article point it out. So what's your beef?
JE: My criticism is that she does not acknowledge the way Boyle and the audience and the judges were blatantly set up by the show -- because that's what these shows do. The show itself made fun of Boyle, encouraging the audience to join in, just so it could turn the tables in a rather facile but effective way. Also, I think Home is insulting in the way she describes Boyle's physical appearance to make the contrast between her looks and her voice more dramatic (for the purpose of her thesis that "beauty is on the inside"). I don't think Susan Boyle is "ugly" (I had beloved aunts and great aunts who looked like her!), and I don't think the audience initially laughed at her because they thought she was. They simply didn't expect that big voice to come out of that unassuming, middle-aged, unemployed Scottish woman they saw dwarfed by that gigantic, flashy stage set. The "lesson" here is not that we shouldn't judge a book by its cover. It's that we shouldn't take such lessons from specious television shows that rely on selling and manipulating these kinds of illusions in the first place.
Groucho Marx: I find television very educational. Every time someone turns one on, I go into another room and read a good book.
Ms. Home's editorial is very well done and springs from the very same outrage that you, Jim, seem to have. Sanctimonious? I don't find either of you to be. Thank you for your insight and observations about the manipulations of "reality". Your ire towards Ms. Home seems misdirected, however.
JE: I'm saying Home needs to take one step back and look at the assumptions underlying the methodology of the TV show itself. Like "American Idol," its "entertainment value" is rooted in ridicule (especially in a season's early shows) as much as in the "discovery of untapped talent." That's the show's bread and butter, and that's the point I think she's missing. A show that blatantly manipulates and exploits a "don't judge a book by its cover" moment actually encourages the opposite. I'm reminded of the set-up in "American Beauty" where the rigid military man next door (Chris Cooper) turns out to be... gay! The simple overturning of the stereotype just reinforces it: "Oh, we're conditioned to automatically expect one thing, so it's got to be that or its opposite."
Jim: a good, interesting post, but I agree with Pat that you practically undermined your points by referencing Home's article. There are two fundamental points being made: society attributing more "value" (like assumed talent) to physically attractive people (and conversely the opposite for those deemed unattractive); and the overt manipulation of reality TV producers. Home's article, tackling the first point, clearly comes across as shaming us for our preconceived opinions. Home isn't "looking down on Boyle"; she is holding up a mirror to capture and report what most of us were probably thinking. And to your point "I think Home is insulting in the way she describes Boyle's physical appearance to make the contrast between her looks and her voice more dramatic", clearly Home is saying that to make a point: society expects her to do all those things to improve her appearance since (sarcastically)"Would that have made her voice any sweeter?" It seems like you are mostly criticizing Home since she's not explicitly addressing the second point = the manipulation of Reality TV. Your comments there are spot on.
JE: I think she's too easily accepting and exploiting the "inner beauty"/"book by its cover" message that the show is selling without questioning the way in which the show manipulates us to reach the conclusions she's writing about. She puts the blame squarely on the audience and the judges; I think it more properly belongs on the show for creating those expectations in the audience and the judges in the first place.
Hi Jim,
Have you heard this already? (Youtube video provided within the article.)
Best regards,
Robert
JE: Thanks -- I hadn't. Susan Boyle as Julie London in "The Girl Can't Help It"! Wow.
Btw, I didn't post my previous comment out of condescension. It was just pure appreciation for Susan Boyle's talent. Her version of Cry Me A River is just as beautiful as Diana Krall's (not that I listen to, or know, many Western songs.)
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Well, Jim, yes, I understand your position. Additionally, though, it seems that we can't entirely blame the show without giving some of that blame to Miss Boyle herself. It's obvious that she was not unwitting. As such, I am content that she is enjoying this Cinderella ride. After all, not many get to have such a thrill.
JE: Exactly. She knew she could sing (she's had professional training in the past), and she knew she'd defy the audience's expectations. She was in on the joke with the show's creators from the start. Some are talking about her as if she were Kaspar Hauser, a foundling with no previous experience in the world.
I think I understand your point about television. But at the same time, aren't you glad that it showed how most of us quickly judge others based on appearance alone? Now whether Susan knows what she is doing, she is still pursuing her dream to sing. Her motivation isn't the same as the television producers... It's a speculation on your part that she was in on the joke... She may have been told to do this or that... but I doubt she knows she'll be this famous. She even looks awkward on some of her TV interviews... Give her the benefit of a doubt. A lesson, wherever it came from, is still a lesson to be learned. It reminded people something, millions in fact and that should be something to be happy about. Manipulate me if I can learn a great lesson or two without harming me. There are films we can also learn something from, doesn't mean those films were made to be a joke on us.
JE: I don't think the sight/sound gag demonstrates what people are saying it demonstrates, or that it "teaches" anything except that these contests can be cruel -- and I'm sure glad Susan Boyle knew she could actually sing (watch her little giggle before she starts) or she could have been devastated before she even started. (Would that have made for good TV, too?) The strategy was just a simple reversal of expectations. (Not unlike the preachy, gimmicky approach to race in "Crash.") Normally, I can't watch these shows because I don't enjoy seeing people humiliate themselves or be humiliated by others. I'm not saying it was wrong for the show to exploit a twist of expectations like this (that's the kind of show it is), but let's at least acknowledge that it was a set-up. And I'm certainly not saying that it was wrong of Susan Boyle -- who is, as you say, pursuing her desire to sing professionally. I'm just saying the self-congratulatory "lessons" some are drawing from it ring hollow to me. It's a bloody TV reality show contest. They did the same thing year before last with Paul Potts (see link above). Let's go back and look at all the clips of beautiful and not-so-beautiful people who couldn't sing and see how the show, the audience and the judges treated them...
My first thought while reading your piece was, "Who the hell is Betty Buckley?" I'll look it up, but her name has no value to me at this time.
JE: Well, you can start with her role as the gym teacher in Brian DePalma's "Carrie" -- then check out her stage credits. She starred in the stateside productions some of the same musicals as Elaine Paige, like "Cats" and "Sunset Boulevard." She's a famous gal.
The title of the post, "Reality - What a concept" continues to focus attention on half, and the really, really unimportant half of the phenomenon. The essential thing to think about is not the concept of "Reality," but rather, the concept of "Show."
From the first shamans and magicians, people have loved having their expectations confounded. These programs are only multi-million dollar versions of the classic shell game, or even three-card monte. People can delude themselves into thinking they are seeing the truth, get ripped off, feel guilt and shame to some extent, then end up laughing about the "lesson" they learned. Of course, the only material profit gained is by the game runner. It's just another way of paying for entertainment.
As a wise man once said, the media are not here to bring us entertainment. They are, in fact, here to bring us to the advertisers.
The concept of "Reality" as presented by these producers is actually a huge McGuffin. It's the plot device no one actually cares about...we're really here for the "Show." The magician's distraction, however, makes most people believe it's the other way around.
Wait...I'm starting to get confused...
JE: Well done. I wanted to focus on the "reality" label as it applies to TV and documentaries, to look at how they're conceived as "shows." What you see on a show like "Britain's Got Talent" is very much scripted -- prepared for, presented, put together. It should be obvious, but people are responding as if it were completely spontaneous -- as if nobody knew what Susan Boyle could do before she took that stage and started singing.
She's not ugly and it was quite a nice dress.
JE: Yeah.
I'm interested to know what you thought of the Paul Potts phenomenon. Didn't the exact same thing happen to him when he auditioned for Britain's Got Talent?
I have to agree with all your points, even though I though I do wish Susan all the best.
JE: I wish her all the best, too. It was her moment and she carried it off beautifully. The Potts thing (see link above) was quite similar, but the build-up was different. The judges and the crowd were shown looking skeptical (maybe a little apprehensive), but not like they were ready to openly ridicule him. The audience fell in love with him, too, once their expectations were upended.
Homes article doesn't address directly the issue of how the show sets up and manipulates footage to create the drama, but I thought her understanding of that was implied. The only thing I don't think she adequately considered is that Susan Boyle could be in on things just as much as the producers of "Britain's Got Talent", Simon Cowell, or the editors of the show. Home's description of Boyle sounds as if she thought there was a true live saint on stage instead of an ordinary woman with a great singing voice and a decent sense of show business.
At any rate, Home is right to assert that our expectations concerning talent and physical appeal have gone way out of control. I imagine that the people in the audience were real, and that the looks of confusion, disgust, and contempt were real as well. Maybe that is what worries me the most.
On a side note: I don't venture to watch much reality TV, but I will say that "Wife Swap" has provided a few guilty hours of cruel entertainment here and there.
JE: I did not know there was a show called "Wife Swap." Cringe. Anyway, go back and look at the insert shots of the judges and individuals in the crowd while Susan Boyle is onstage. Was this shot and directed live (like the Oscarcast?), or did they shoot some coverage, choose these moments and then insert them (out of sequence?) to create a little narrative? (A "lump of coal into a diamond," or a "frog into a prince," perhaps, as a female judge puts it in the Paul Potts clip.) I don't know the answer. How much, if any, of the show is broadcast live during this phase of the competition?
Again, I don't disagree about what you are saying regarding reality TV shows and I know from experience, as an indie filmmaker, which shots to insert to create an emotional response. Maybe Simon knew that Susan can actually sing, not sure about the other judges, but you can't deny that the live audience, even if one can say a few of them knew Susan, those were real reactions before and after she sang. And it kind of like how people who saw the video on youtube reacted when they first watched it. Anyway thanks for your reply to my previous comment. And I hated the film Crash as well, like you said, that film was preachy that only showed stereotypes to race. Thanks Jim.
It's a very simple melodramatic scene at the end of a movie. "Middle-aged woman teaches cynical people how to love again, restores faith in people's ability to surprise."
And she could sing.
Of course we have very little idea how much of this actually happened. There are shots of a handful of audience members, who were laughing at this woman, because...obviously a few people in a gigantic room going on to watch a show that regularly ridicules contestants are going to be snickering whenever any new person comes on stage. (The ovation seemed forced to me too--happening so early on--but maybe it really happened. It still doesn't mean that was a Then the room erupts into a spontaneous standing ovation which...seemed very fake to me (giant "STANDING OVATION" signs?) but probably was legitimate. The "We were all ridiculing you!" seemed to me to be invented by the camera, by the backstage guys, and by the judges, who in the middle of their little speech rewrote history by declaring that everyone in the room was ridiculing her for unstated reasons; suddenly everyone can look inside themselves, figure out what prejudice she touched on, and then assume that that's what the judges are talking about.
Me? I knew what was coming by the time I saw the clip; but my assumption would be that the snickering that was present, and the "don't judge a book by its cover" didn't seem to be about physical attractiveness but just a sense of this woman being unassuming, not being able to remember the word for "village" on the spot--not striding on with absolute obvious confidence (although she does seem to have real confidence in her singing ability). It's not that she's "ugly," which she isn't, but that she doesn't strut on stage, doesn't talk back to the judges, but just seems...nice. Doesn't seem to have the star ego.
I find the assumptions in home's article to be pretty extreme, self-congratulatory only for learning a lesson she should have learned a long time ago. "Maybe people who don't use a stairmaster can be cool too!" is akin to saying "Maybe women can drive as well as men!" or insert your own cultural/sexual/racial/socioeconomic stereotype here.
JE: That's it exactly. Andy Borowitz parodies the response here: "Talented Ugly Person Baffles World"
This, I think, is essentially what Colette Douglas Home is saying.
What's funny here, Jim, is that your article here carries the same theme as "Crash," which is not so much about race—that's the fallacy that folks who dismiss it seem to use (and ignores the conflicts in levels of bureacracy in the film)—but about attitude, and how it's so much easier to go with your pre-conceptions than to break out of them.
I forget the name of the Western, but one of my favorite movie-lines is: "I try not to hate in the plural."
Regarding "reality" shows and documentaries in general, there are no surprises in the editing room.
And on Susan Boyle in particular, it called to mind an episode of the CBS Evening News which ended with a report on a British extras company called "Ugly People" which supplied "plain" and "unglamorous" extras for "authenticity" and "color." When it cut back to the studio, Cronkite looked up from his monitor, looked at the camera and said, "Maybe I've lived in New York too long, but I thought those people looked rather nice! And that's the way it is..."
JE: I always loved Walter Cronkite. "Crash" doesn't get racism because it reduces it to only the most direct and overt expressions. It's just as racist to be overly solicitous of someone because of their race as it is to be mean or insulting to them. That was the point of Sarah Silverman's controversial joke about racial slurs -- that to say "I love chinks -- who doesn't?" is just as racist, and is based on the same kind of stereotyping, as saying "I hate chinks!" Now the people who made ridiculous assumptions about Susan Boyle based on her appearance in a TV reality show contest are congratulating themselves on Learning A Lesson -- and are lecturing others about it. Absurd. But then, on American TV we have the beautiful America Ferrera playing a character known as "Ugly Betty." If that's the standard for ugly, then actual ugly people are really and truly screwed.
Ya know, I've been saying since this story broke that it's just sick exhibitionism, and I've just been calling it "Ugly Duckling" bullsh*t" since then. And I was gonna further that sentiment here, but you went ahead and did it first in your post.
The point is, get out of my head, Jim. It's my brain and I didn't invite you!
JE: Always remember, Ryan: Let the right one in.
But then, on American TV we have the beautiful America Ferrera playing a character known as "Ugly Betty." If that's the standard for ugly, then actual ugly people are really and truly screwed.
Wish I could remember more of the details, but there was an actual bit on The Simpsons covering this: a casting director, in response to a producer's request to "cast someone ugly," brings in an actual ugly girl who can act.
Producer's response: She bawls out the casting director. "I meant TV ugly, not ugly ugly!" (I've been disagreeing with you on a lot of stuff lately Jim, but you hit it out of the ballpark on this one.)
Re: The Simpsons
I didn't think it was an ugly girl, I think it was the bartender Moe.
"...the people who made ridiculous assumptions about Susan Boyle based on her appearance in a TV reality show contest are congratulating themselves on Learning A Lesson -- and are lecturing others about it."
I shared this bit with someone else and they said, "What if they really did learn a lesson? What if they're just being sincere in a clumsy way?" My response to that was simple: sincerity doesn't need to advertise. The way you know whether or not someone has learned such a lesson for real is by what they do when no one's looking or keeping score.
But that's not something you can pack into a TV show in the 30 seconds before you cut to commercial. Or maybe into a TV show, period.
Yep, it was Moe.
I was actually thinking of quoting that line from that particular episode ("Pyg-Moe-lian").
Jim,
you should check out the video of another recent contestant on the show named, Shaheen Jafargholi. His audition was definitely staged, even more so than Susan Boyle's audition. Let's face it, reality shows are just like other shows, except they pretend to be unscripted, unedited ect., which makes them even more fake than "fiction" tv shows.
JE: I saw that online. What was the deal? Simon Cowell made him stop the Amy Winehouse song he was doing and do a Michael Jackson song instead? Was that supposed to ratchet up the drama?
JE: I saw that online. What was the deal? Simon Cowell made him stop the Amy Winehouse song he was doing and do a Michael Jackson song instead? Was that supposed to ratchet up the drama?
I think it was done to add to the suspense or something, as if the contestant had "messed up" and Simon was giving him a second chance. If it was truly happening in the moment, my question is, how did the show just happen to have the recording for the second song ready? Perhaps they had to edit the part out where they paused to scramble to get a tape of the song for the sake of time, but the moment was definitely puzzling. The boy also seemed really prepared for it.
JE: Yes, and since when do judges give advice -- and "do-overs" -- in the middle of a performance? WWE wrestling is more spontaneous.
Jimmy and William B: you are correct, it was Moe, thanks for catching my mistake. D'oh!
Britain's Got Talent is a TV show. If you think that any contestant just merely drops by and auditions in front of the judges then you are naive. Every contestant auditions in front of the show's producers who are hired to weed out the best (and worst) contestants. There are thousands who audition and Simon Cowell and co. definitely do not sit and listen to all of them but only the select few chosen by the producers. The producers know what works well and that is a great performance from an unlikely contestant ala Paul Potts. By the way, I have no problem with the way the show is produced. The auditions happen weeks before the show goes to air so they go and edit it to maximum effect. Television has been doing it for years since it was first created. Nothing new here.
JE: True. Movies, too -- documentaries and features. There is no unmediated "reality" on a screen. Even our courts know that first-hand eyewitness experience itself is unreliable, purely subjective.
Jim,
Like you, Top Chef, is the only "contest drama" I follow. What I find interesting (in a brow furrowing, disconcerting way) is the surface level skepticism that people adopt. In the case of Top Chef there seems to be the common belief that contestants are kept on the show for the sake of story line, drama, and so that there can be a "villain"figure. Conspiracies seem to abound between the producers and "judges" to manipulate challenge results.
I gotta think, wouldn't it be easier to create these roles, stories, rivalries in post? I mean to create a "bad guy" all you would have to do consistently show them scowling, walking in slow motion with a frown as some out of context bit of dialog and a stinger sound effect plays on the sound track? With the shear amount of raw footage available to the production just about any storyline ought to be possible.
Much of "reality TV" encourages a base cynicism (they say its white, there fore its black) that is just as much of the created viewing experience as the surface level reading. It seems to me that the bulk of the audience manipulation is far more workmanly and banal than many viewers want to believe.
--Al
Maybe Simon knew that Susan can actually sing, not sure about the other judges, but you can't deny that the live audience, even if one can say a few of them knew Susan, those were real reactions before and after she sang.
I think Simon DEFINITELY knew and "acted" through his reactions. My impression is he is far too in control of these shows to let things happen by chance. I expect the judges knew too and they also feigned surprise. As for the audience reactions - I expect as Jim said they were general reactions culled during taping (perhaps even during other contestants) and inserted after the fact. And don't get me started on the standing ovation...
It's a shame that they don't let some of these things actually play out by themselves and provide real honest surprises. I guess the logistics are harder to plan for (actually capturing reactions on camera, etc.) and you might not get the "big" surprise every show, but still...Of course, "real" reality (I can't believe I just had to say that) is mostly kinda dull with moments of interest, so there's always going to be a certain amount of editing and putting shots into context to tell a story.
A good example is something like Cuba Gooding Jr. when he won his Oscar. There was a behind the scenes documentary made about putting the show together that showed the director handling that particular event and how his cameramen searched for the audience reactions and he cut them all live. Pretty remarkable. It's still editing, but on the fly live with pretty genuine reactions (well OK, as genuine as an Oscar audience can be anyway...).
I've read a few articles about Susan Boyle lately and they've all either taken up the 'don't judge a book...' line or the 'stop codescending her by saying "don't judge a book..."' line. Susan, I suspect, doesn't want or need any of this. She has been singing for a while - I seldom admit this on the internet, but I am from Bathgate, the town next to her village, and apparently she has sung in the theatre in which I work. Our theatre technician wasn't remotely surprised when he saw the video; he knew exactly how talented she was. Now she's decided to give this a go in the hope of fulfilling her dream and it's worked out for her. I'm really happy for her. In terms of her looks, she looks like a wee woman from Blackburn, no more or less. She presumably knew that as such she was not of the pop star mould but she had the balls to go for it, and she showed no unease or nerves on the stage. And she knew she could sing. Everything other than her singing and the audience listening is irrelevant.
JE: Well put. Methinks those who harp on her appearance doth protest too much.
I found the tone in the second article undermined the point it was trying to make. Was there really any need for the vindictive delight with which the author finds creative ways to describe the various individuals? ('like a piece of pork sitting on a doily', 'a burst bag of flour', 'a baboon in mascara')
JE: The way I read it she was being sarcastic, taking the over-the-top "ugly" descriptions of Susan Boyle and throwing them back in people's faces to get them to recognize how some have been treating her -- even as they think they're celebrating her:
It's so sad that people automatically assume that artistic talent and gorgeous looks must somehow inevitably go together and are shocked, shocked, when they don't. Doesn't anybody remember Janis Joplin? She wasn't exactly beauty queen material, and she was certainly the target of sexist insults on occasion. But somehow, in those days, the music was what was considered the important thing. As long as you sang or played from the gut (and Janis did that better than just about anyone before or since), you were accepted, even revered.
Nowadays, of course, show tunes and soulless pop-soap trump all. Authenticity, whether in looks or art, is a forgotten concept.
I don't look at the whole Susan Boyle bit as so much of an ethics lesson as I do an example of brilliant marketing. The producers of Britain's Got Talent listened to her audition and realized they had a potential recording artist on their hands. The problem is, how to sell her. A dowdy, virginal 47-year old is not an easy sell in today's youth oriented pop market. So, what's the marketing angle? I can hear the producers planning it all out.
"How about, we make her age and looks an asset instead of a hinderance. We know she's not going to dazzle the world the moment she walks out on stage. Instead, let's go for a bait-and-switch. Play upon the audiences and the judges (if they weren't in on it) cynical expectations of trainwreck performers. Have wardrobe, make-up and the hairdresser frump her up a bit. And Susan's game. She'll play along. She'll act cheeky, waggle her hips and boast about being the next Elaine Paige. Oooooh, they will all be salivating at the thought of her crashing and burning. Make sure you have plenty of cameras covering the studio audience. Bookmark any shots you get of people rolling their eyes and shaking their heads. And the songs? I Dreamed a Dream from Les Miz. Not only it is a de rigeur audition piece, but the lyrics will resonate once we have achieved the pay off when Susan sings those first few words. The underdog angle. Wallflower turns jeers into cheers within moments. A star is born."
When I saw the clip, I wasn't thinking "I guess we've learned a valuable lesson about judging people" so much as I was thinking, and I am not making a fat joke here, "they totally ripped off the ending to Babe. This is just like everybody booing Farmer Hoggett only to burst into ovation when it turns out the pig can herd sheep".
And I applaud them for it. It was a bloody good show.
Hi Jim, when Josh Rushing answered Jon Stewart's question, "What is America missing?," I thought he was not telling everything. It's not only that in certain parts of the world, people don't have the luxury to care for what they consider trivial things, but that a good portion of them actually consider too much freedom a bane to society. A recent underscoring of this truth is this news piece about Jackie Chan's "well-meaning" comment on freedom in China. Here are some related links:
Jackie Chan: Chinese people need to be controlled
Jackie Chan 'freedom' comments spark widespread ire
No, Jackie Chan did not attack democracy, at least not directly. His PR team issued a statement saying that his original statements had been taken out of context by people with ulterior motives, and that Jackie Chan was actually referring to China's entertainment industry, not the tenets of democracy. I write this not to discuss the honesty behind Chan's explanation as to why he said what he said. (To me it sounded like one big excuse anyway. I mean, why even include Hongkong and Taiwan and use us for comparison? As if everything is well and orderly in China!) The point I wish to bring up here is that not many Americans seem to grasp the fact that in certain parts of the world, the inhibition of freedom is actually more valued. I can attest to this fact because Jackie Chan was not the first person I've come across who has misgivings, or should I say misconceptions, about "unrestrained" democracy. His notion that "too much freedom" churns out chaotic societies is quite standard for people who share his views. Some even go the whole nine yards and regard the implementation of human rights as relative to the situation at hand. Which makes me wonder what 成龍's views are on human rights. I'm sure there are a lot of people out there who have heard some such similar statements from people within their own circles, and thus can give credence to my words. For these people, it is not so much about affording trivialities but about viewing democracy, and to some extent, Hollywood, as bad, transgressive influences.
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I respect Jackie Chan and happen to think that he meant well when he spoke those words. Frankly, I'm a bit befuddled/disillusioned with the current situation myself. Still, I wished that he kept Hongkong and Taiwan out of it. It sounded like we were used as scapegoats before he went on to hit the Mainland side about the milk taints. Ugh!!
I first saw the clip of Susan on Digg.com, before the mainstream media started writing articles about her. From my viewing, the clip featured a middle-aged lady with a beautiful voice, and people dugg up the clip because her singing was so phenomenal.
Yeah yeah, it was a reality TV show, and we all saw how audience patronised her before she'd even opened her mouth. But it was her SINGING that made me recommend it to other people. That, and that alone.
Lo and behold, along comes the 'Susan Boyle Phenomena' media machine, and suddenly I started reading about her being "frumpy", "ugly", "having terrible fashion sense" - and these are just the kinder descriptions.
You know... before writers fell over themselves to show how creative (and cruel) they can be in describing someone who doesn't look like a movie star, Susan Boyle was just an ORDINARY-LOOKING PERSON. THAT WAS ALL. But now, thanks to the endless articles describing her as "frumpy and ugly", that's what she's become in the eyes of everyone. I mean, how DARE I think Susan is "ordinary-looking", when there are scores of writers out there telling me that she's "frumpy and ugly"?!
Reality is being manipulated alright. Just not where you think it is.
Really good article.
Related:
http://www.popeater.com/music/article/susan-boyle-simon-cowells-creation/440819?icid=main|main|dl2|link3|http%3A%2F%2Fwww.popeater.com%2Fmusic%2Farticle%2Fsusan-boyle-simon-cowells-creation%2F440819
I'm almost finished reading Rushing's 'Mission Al Jazeera,' and his take on the perception/reality disconnect is revealing not only in light of his appearance in 'Control Room' but in his experience of the run up to and early stages of the war. It's a must read for American news viewers - from Fox News to MSNBC.
It seems to me that this segment is VERY edited. The sounds of the crowd reaction, the cutting to the judges faces. I'm not saying it's faked, but it's not just being shown 100% real time. At least, I don't think it is. Is this show "Live"? Because American Idol's final stages are live and thus aren't edited in such a way.
What? You're suggesting that Susan Boyle's performance may have been filmed and edited in such a way as to manipulate the viewing audience into being surprised by her singing talent? Next you'll tell me that the magician I saw the other day didn't really make a rabbit materialize in his hat when he wiggled his fingers around.
"Next you'll tell me that the magician I saw the other day didn't really make a rabbit materialize in his hat when he wiggled his fingers around."
While that's usually the case, the particular magician that you saw actually has magical powers.