» Who knew?
Katie wonders if anyone in Britain was surprised by revelations of TV dishonesty
‘A crisis of confidence’ may be what the papers are calling it, but what the British public are really feeling about the revelation that television is less truthful than it appeared to be, is closer to a combination of amusement, ambivalence and apathy.
The case against telly has been mounting for some time, stacking up in black and white on the news-stands.
It started somewhere with the row over Celebrity Big Brother – and the charge that Endemol’s editing and Channel 4’s attitude underestimated the severity of the race row situation that was breaking. But once the tide had turned on telly and the trickle of doubt had started, it was only a matter of time before the floodwaters broke.
After CBB it all just went from bad to worse. The next tirades on trust were the phone-in scandals. When we discovered that not just Blue Peter but even Richard And Judy – our own adopted TV parents – had been lying to scam money out of us.
After that came the revelations that Gordon Ramsay didn’t really catch his own effing fish, that Bear Grylls had been staying in five star hotel rooms while pretending to camp in the wilderness and that even the Queen had been stung by a bit of bad editing that made her look less than majestic.
But, while it was natural for the papers to get over-excited about all the gaffs that Auntie et al were making – especially in silly season – was it really all that important? Frankly, did we give a damn?
“Whatever next? The revelation that Nigella doesn’t really want to shag us for dessert?”
I made up my mind where I stood on the debate when the pneumatic Nigella was finally dragged into it, with the accusation that her recipes were hard to cook and her new cookery series hadn’t really been filmed at her home at all – as the set suggested – but in a studio mock up.
My God! Now the (oven) gloves really were off! Whatever next? The revelation that Nigella doesn’t really want to shag us for dessert?
As the accusations poured off the newsprint one-by-one, I started to wonder what decade we were living in. Surely not since the 1950s – the golden age of the box – have we fallen for the fallacy that what we’re watching on television is real.
I use my own insight to ascertain that not everyone who lives on a farm is as hot as Caine Dingle, that Gillian McKeith doesn’t actually give a damn about my health, that Blue Peter presenters are not really angels and that the blondes that read the weather may not be meteorologists.
The discovery that TV is conning me has not shattered my confidence in it, actually it’s only confirmed the suspicions l enjoyed about it all along.
In fact, the shocking thing about all this is not the ‘unmasking’ of TV as the evil uncle of our times, but just how gullible the newspapers assumed we all were in the first place.
