Culture

Et tu Britain's Got Talent?

by Drew Bulman | April 21, 2009 at 06:09 pm

280 views | 22 Recommendations | 7 comments

I'm terribly sorry for that headline, but moving on:

It's difficult for me to watch reality TV anymore. The majority of mainstream reality shows today are total hackjobs. That is, the editing crew must receive a pretty large paycheck. We're used to seeing conversations played out on screen with edits between every single line of dialogue, loaded with all sorts of asynchronous b-roll shots of random facial expressions and dirty looks plopped in to 'spice' up the scene.

Now, okay. I'm pragmatic. I completely understand why this has now become the norm in almost every reality show. It speeds up the show, allows the producers to 'spice up the action,' and so on. Of course, the true context of the scene is lost in the process, but I understand why its done.

However, there are some reality shows that seem to be more resilient to the idea of editing-as-storytelling. Britain's Got Talent is a relatively pure concept, and I've always enjoyed it for the talent it brings on to the stage. My absolute favorites, of course, were the unlikely talents. The Susan Boyles before Susan Boyle.

The Boyle phenomenon is fine with me. I shrugged off a New York Post article that questioned whether or not the whole thing was, well, suspicious. She can sing, I thought. And that's all I really cared about.

Though there's one clip I recently watched from the 2009 season of Britain's Got Talent that was so amazingly contrived, I found myself second guessing the Boyle fiasco by proxy. I realize the show builds narratives around the different 'characters' who perform, but this scene is so constructed, it hurts. What makes the hokeyness even worse is that you can see it coming from a mile away.

I am referring specifically to: 1m10s-2m30s~

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amyjudd

at 18:34 on April 21st, 2009

I wrote a post about Shaheen on Saturday actually before the show had aired in the UK, thinking that it might be a talking point later, and I was right, it now has over 5,000 views to the story, which is crazy!

I'm curious though, why 1m 10s, do you mean the part where they look at the sound technician to start the cd?

Drew Bulman

at 18:55 on April 21st, 2009

I think I just picked an arbitrary time around the start of his performance so readers don't sit through the minute or so of exposition wondering what the hell I'm talking about. :)

His performance was amazing. It was the whole Simon stopping the song, all the drama in the ten second interlude or so, followed by the belting out of the first tone by Shaheen that struck me as being so contrived. Maybe I'm just acting paranoid, but it seemed that the whole scene was constructed for show--planned in advance.

I mean, small potatoes. I'm not losing any sleep. It just made me think, you know, they really don't need to throw in all this artificial fluff.

edit: God maybe I am going crazy

amyjudd

at 19:04 on April 21st, 2009

Oh for sure it must have been staged as how on earth would he have two songs prepared and two sets of music there? the first time I watched it, that was my first thought, so it must have been set up from the beginning.

Drew Bulman

at 19:17 on April 21st, 2009

Indeed. The nut of this post was supposed to be something about how the hokey and artificial Shaheen stunt (One of Cowell's creations, no doubt) was unnecessary. I.e. the talent stands out in its own right.

Instead I wrote six or seven paragraphs before I even got to my point, and when I did, it ended up being my last paragraph. I'm pioneering this new writing style called the pyramid. Think inverted pyramid, only instead, it's a journalistic abomination. :)

Ah well, that's what the "opinion" check box is for.

amyjudd

at 19:21 on April 21st, 2009

Haha - the 'journalistic abomination' writing style... :)

mudricky

at 03:02 on April 22nd, 2009

I'm sure when it first started I remember them saying an act needs at least two proformances on the night, and must do that second act if required (would need to check that though)

If they allowed him to continue and he got through singing the Amy Winehouse number the Michael Jackson song would have been his second proformance. Then for the final he can do something new, or sing his best one - now he needs to come up with something else for the second round.

I've saw them asking for another song a couple of times with singers in past seasons.