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Apology first: This was written a few months ago, and has just been found on my PC. Therefore, it addresses news stories from a while ago. Ah well. It was in the papers, just the other week, that the head of the BBC had to apologize to the Great British Public. The crime? They shot both the Christmas special and the Easter special of ‘Songs of Praise’ on the same day. So basically, after filming Christmas trees and nativity songs, they redressed the singers and the church and started singing hymns about harvests and bunny rabbits. Who the hell is watching ‘Songs of Praise’ because they want to see people singing in genuine springtime? What is the big deal?!
It all began so simply. Someone, on some TV show, didn’t let the audience know that some competition had stopped accepting contestants but still charged them for the phone call. Then ‘Blue Peter’ put some actor child in to accept an award because the real kid didn’t show up. They also refused to call the Blue Peter cat by the name that was voted by the audience. This may have something to do with the fact that the name voted was ‘Pussy’.
And now, every other day, I read stories (Mostly in the Daily Mail) about television and the evil cons they use on the viewers. Nigella doesn’t really use public transport. And that kitchen isn’t really in her house. Gordon Ramsey didn’t really catch lobsters. And Clarkson, Hammond and May didn’t really set fire to a tent whilst caravanning. I’m sure it won’t be long before we hear that Ant and Dec aren’t really twins or that Simon Cowell isn’t really criticizing the contestants of ‘X-Factor’. He just records some generic insults in front of blue-screen and they edit it in later.
Speaking of X-Factor, I read a big exclusive story that all the contestants are pre-picked to be either really good or bad enough to be funny. That’s not an exclusive! That’s not even a story. Of course they select contestants beforehand. Who wants to see average singers, being told that they are average? It makes for average television. When will this madness end?
I’ve been told by some people that they can no longer trust what they see on television anymore. Please raise your hand if you ever believe what is on the box. And if your hand is now hovering in the air, you are an idiot! Plain and simple.
How can you truly believe what you are watching is the truth?! Even if they go out with the express intention of showing the truth, lies get in everywhere. People lie when on camera. The director chooses to shoot certain things, which narrows the truth even more. And the editor edits the little truth that’s left into what we watch. We are watching lies.
But television has to lie. If it was revealed that Ramsey hadn’t caught the lobster, we could never see him try one and know what he thought of it. There would be no ending to the story. We’d also lose the persona that he creates. He’d no longer be the firebrand chef who swears a lot. He’d be the guy who couldn’t catch a fish.
In the immortal words of Doctor Gregory House: “Everyone lies”. When we are asked how we are, we’ll reply ‘Fine’ even if your dog has been run over that morning. And of course we don’t mind someone taking the last donut. These are simple lies that make life that little bit smoother. So let TV do the same. Sure, if they are conning us out of money then they should be punished, but if it’s not damaging anyone, let them get away with it.
It doesn’t matter if the banter in Top Gear is scripted. It doesn’t matter if Trinny is wearing a wig. And if everyone stopped worrying about all this nonsense, we can all sit down and enjoy the lie.
:D
7 comments:
Ahhh but there in lies the crux. If at the beginning of the program they say we reserve the right to edit the program to influence your choice so that we get lots of money from you .. then people would accept it. When I watch the news I expect it to be truthful. When I watch a program where they exist based upon the contributions received from phone lines paid by the viewers then again I would expect it to be truthful. Otherwise put the warning up in front and lets see what the population would actually do!
I hate to tell you, but even the news isn't truthful.
Even something simple as a 'noddy', a shot in which you cut back to interviewer nodding their head, usually implies that they have edited the dialogue down, so it isn't word for word. It saves time.
Then, on a bigger scale, lets say they are covering Iraq, they're going to be showing you the shots of the troops in danger, being fired upon. This may only happen once a week, or once a month, or only in this certain place. But they won't show the quiet bits because it isn't interesting. What they show is technically a false version of reality!
Then on a moral level, let's say a bomb goes off in a pub, the news is going to report from the view of the victims. The bombers will get painted as cut-out bad guys. This is hardly truthful reality.
You just have to accept that TV lies to you. Not out of spite most of the time, but just because the very nature of programming means you are choosing shots and editing them into a sequence that has to make sense to people.
Sorry.
:)
Now you are not comparing like for like. When the news shows the incident of an explosion that is not done to mislead but to actually show the item of the news, it wouldn't be news if it showed 24/7 pictures of a building doing nothing, the news was the explosion.
When a program such as Big Brother deliberately edits the feeds to give over a production teams view of what they want the public to see then charges money for voting based upon that misleading representation then that is wrong and should be announced ahead of time. "Dear Viewer we have edited this program to reflect our views which do not necessarily reflect real life experiences of the contestants but please pay us money anyway" .. hmmm wonder if they would still have the same level of income then ?
But that would be the same as putting 'Hot Coffee' on a Starbucks cup or 'May Contain Nuts' on a packet of nuts. It should be obvious! The only people who are allowed to not know a TV is edited and doesn't represent reality is anybody under ten.
And back to the news, it also edits to show people how the production team wants them to be shown.
During the McCann case, the McCann's were either victims or potential suspects. I bet if you compared the footage from the news stories during one and the other, they'd use footage to make them look sinister during the latter.
I think your only gripe is not that they lie, but that people pay money to vote based on this.
:)
Nope my gripe is that people read the Sun and the Daily Mail. We have many people who are brain washed by what they see on the TV each and everyday but are not capable of knowing the difference to between fact and the production teams idea of fiction. WWith that in mind it does need to spelt out that its not real, Jade is not really a celebrity, the Cheeky girls can't really sing and life doesn't revolve around Big Brother or other such programs.
Tis you thats kidding yourself about the intelligence of the common viewer.
So you're implying we should pander down to the people who read the Sun and the Mail?
I think we do that enough, without television joining in. Next they'll be warnings in front of Dr Who, to make sure people know monsters don't exist.
I don't want to live in that world!
:)
Now you have really stretched the point now .. NOBODY.. including Sun readers .. could possibly believe that the monsters in Dr Who exist. After all they know and recognise where most of the parts come from, for example, the plunger on the Darlek is infact a plunger.
:op
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