Over the last few years certain entertainment programmes, such as Pop Idol, Britain’s Got Talent and X-Factor have been under greater scrutiny. Why, you may ask? The idea of Britain’s Got Talent is to give the ‘ordinary person a chance to become great’; to become the next icon. However, is this really the case? Britain’s Got Talent is renowned for being one of the most popular entertainment programmes on television, when we laugh at, not with the foolish contestants. Does it encourage public cruelty? Is it, instead, that Britain’s Got Talent and similar shows are not entertainment programmes, as they claim to be, but have incorporated entertainment with the idea of cruelty, and become a modern day version of the Victorian Freak Show?
The majority view Britain’s Got Talent as a popular entertainment show which has launched such careers as George Sampson, Diversity and Susan Boyle. It provides laughs, tears and a great way to take our minds off the lack of summer sun. However, there is a danger that this programme, like many others, has just gone too far. The auditions have increasingly started to take centre stage, and they are seen as some of the funniest moments of the programme, because of the comical contestants’ entries.
Of course, there are also those that have realised a way to be noticed is to make a fool out of themselves, and go on the programme to grab the desired 15 minutes of fame. However, there are those used by the entertainment industry as a comedic tool. They believe the show is gateway to their dreams, and are left humiliated and even more vulnerable than before; a prime example being Susan Boyle, whose numerous breakdowns and nicknames (SuBo) have been splashed throughout the tabloids.
In the music industry there has already been a backlash towards these kinds of shows, with Temple-Morris, an Xfm DJ speaking out about The X-Factor because he believes it humiliates contestants who do not make the grade. The show, he continued, was guilty of “putting them on that stage and basically laughing at them like the village idiot in Medieval times.” Other music acts such as Madness star Suggs and Pendulum also believe this and took part in a Christmas single to counter The X-Factor.
However, it is not just the music industry that is turning against shows of this type; it is also members of the public. Already ratings for Britain’s Got Talent have dropped in comparison to the last series, and the campaign that made Rage Against the Machine Christmas number one instead of X Factor’s Joe McElderry became a national story. This shows people are becoming more aware that it is less about the talent and more about the ratings for these shows.
Of course we must give these ‘talent’ shows some credit, they have launched some successful careers, where the acts are now no longer associated with them, but have become their own identity, such as Girls Aloud, whose associations with Pop Stars: The Rivals are now long forgotten. But we must consider how many contestants and how many winners, over how many years, these talent shows have had. The statistics are pretty poor, a handful of acts out of hundreds have made it, and we have to wonder whether they’ve improved as many lives as they hinted they would.
Entertainment has been taken to the extreme; extreme celebrities, extreme people, extreme laughs. But is this really what we want? Personally I would hope that eventually these shows would go back to their beginnings, where it was more about promoting the talent, then promoting the ratings and the laughs. Hopefully they evolve, but until then I will still choose to watch Later with Jools Holland, where I know it’s more about encouraging the talent then entertaining the masses.