So, another farce rumbles on through talent show history, with Britain’s Got Talent thrust into the spotlight earlier this year after the validity of Ronan Parke’s anonymity before the show was doubted.
Even though it has been furiously denied by Simon Cowell on air and by his music label Syco Entertainment, this latest storm still raises more questions than it does answers. With Mr Cowell being accused of already fixing the victory for Ronan Parke before he even auditioned, this has brought talent shows into further disrepute, with the public wondering whether they are actually fair game for everyone anymore. Even if Ronan isn’t being buttered up for the big time, this does little for Simon Cowell and his host of programmes to try and keep their names clean.
This latest charade wouldn’t be so bad had it not followed a string of previous controversies, both involved in The X Factor and also Britain’s Got Talent. Remember Laura White, a contestant on The X Factor back in 2009? She got booted out of the show for finishing in the bottom two, yet thousands of viewers complained that they couldn’t get through on the phone to register their vote. Laura wasn’t allowed back in the competition, and so many voters felt that she had been cheated out of a chance of winning, especially as she was considered one of the more talented contestants.
In the same year another contestant, Lucie Jones, lost out on the public vote after the judges couldn’t separate her and Jedward. Sounds pretty standard, right? However, Simon cast his vote in favour of Jedward, even after publicly slating them throughout the whole competition, stating that “neither of them could win”. Many people have come to the conclusion that he already knew the lowest placed competitor in the public vote, Lucie Jones, and so voted for Jedward in order to get her booted off the show. Others claim that Simon was “scared” of Lucie and considered her a strong opponent, and so wanted to get rid of her, compared to Jedward, who’s support was always going to fizzle out.
Do you see a familiar trend? Britain’s Got Talent has just been as bad a culprit, with the Ronan Parke fiasco far from the first incident to blacken the show’s name. Even on the same series the drama surrounding Ronan Parke wasn’t the only occasion where eyebrows were raised. Jessica Hobson, another semi-finalist on this years show, was reduced to tears after her performance of Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies” was slammed by the judges. They cited the cheesy dance routine and her choice of outfit as the main benefactors in her downfall, and while audiences across the country watched another singer weep at the realisation of ruining her chances, the real reason for the waterworks started to come to light. She claimed she was forced to dance throughout her act rather stay at the piano like she’d prefer and the song was not her choice, and neither was her dress. At this point producers were probably screaming down Ant and Dec’s earpieces telling them to hurry Jessica off the stage before she exposed any more of the controlling nature that they have behind the scenes over the contestants.
This also happened a couple of series ago with an acoustic duo and a constestant named Natalie Okri who were outraged that they weren’t allowed to even choose their track for their performance but this trend just goes to show how the contestants are somewhat treated like rag dolls. Producers seem to paint a picture in their heads of what the contestants should appear, sound and act like and enforce this through the use of “crowd-pleaser” songs while cheapening the act with a million and one backing dancers and some pretty fireworks to finish off with.
Obviously these disputes are only a small proportion of the controversy that The X Factor and Britain’s Got Talent is shrouded in year upon year. Tapping up contestants before they apply to the show, editing footage to make them appear undesireable to viewers and over-egging contestant’s backgrounds to turn them into charity cases are other things that the two shows have been accused of.
However, in hindsight I actually think these reality programmes thrive on the controversies, enabling them to maximise viewing figures and always guarantee them front page headlines, giving them further exposure to the public. Even though the stories may give bad publicity, they provide talking points in general chit chat within everyday life, and we all know everyone wants to watch what everyone’s talking about. With this in mind, yes we all think these two programmes can be manipulative, yes we can by outraged by some of the rumours and stories we hear surrounding the shows but by no means does it stop us from watching it. If anything it makes people want to watch them more, as drama equals great TV, proved by the current series of X Factor matching it’s record audience for an opening episode.
So it seems the bigger the drama the bigger the audience the two shows pull in. I guess I should’ve changed the title of this article to “Britain wants controversy”...
I stopped watching those shows (can't remember which one) when they couldn't find enough contestants for the "groups" section so cobbled one together from the previously rejected contestants. The only reason they needed another group was to make the starting line up even when it came to the first televised show with a public vote, nothing to do with "talent".
ReplyDeleteBut we've always had talent shows, even before the days of television and radio, and they were probably just as badly skewed by the organisers. Nature of the beast I feel.