The X-Factor...

Few programs send me up the wall as much as reality TV, celebrity-this or celebrity-that and such-like utter nonsense. And in that category, the X-Factor really is the one that takes the biscuit. It's the one that basically drives me out of any room, makes me come out in spots and causes the need to vomit almost beyond control...

Why? Because I'm against entertainment or escapism? Nope, although I do feel that "entertainment ", however feeble it often is, takes up far too much television time, pushing anything even remotely serious into late spots where the good citizens of our countries never get to see them, left to a diet of mind bogglingly mindless, mediocre and often boorishly boring "stuff".

Why then am I so thoroughly riled by a show that enjoys such tremendous success?

Mostly because such "reality" TV shows, a misnomer if there ever was one, portray the world exactly as it is not. I truly believe that "anti-reality TV show" would be quite an accurate category description for the kind of TV ordeal that thrives on the illusion and complete paradox that everyone can be a "star", a "celebrity". Of course, if we were all stars... there would be no stars. And a bunch of untalented underachievers which rarely exceed the musical level of a routined karaoke fanatic cannot become stars anyway. Not surprisingly then that winners of this event disappear from the firmament even faster than those of that other famous "music festival", the Eurovision Song Contest.

But the biggest mistake anyone could make is to believe that the X-Factor is actually about creating starlets. It isn't at all. Sure, because of the competition element which keeps the audiences come back time after time, someone has to win and get their ten minutes of fame. But it's the production Company, the TV channel ITV 1, the judges and presenter that make the real money, over and over and over again...

The whole thing is also completely engineered, orchestrated with the precision of a Nuremberg rally. Centrepiece are the three "judges", who behave as they are expected to behave in this pantomime. Simon ("the MEAN one", oh, scary stuff!), Sharon ("fishwife cum celebrity wife") and Louis ("Oirishman cum good"). Then there's the feisty, buxom blonde presenter Kate and the wannabe-stars who invariably produce dull, out of tune or out of sync renditions of bubble gum "pop classics", chosen by their star-forging mentors... the judges.

Finally, to complete the recipe, an enthusiastic audience is needed. I always like to think that these people are jolted into applauding and jumping up and down with glee at every fart that is being uttered, by means of electrical shocks, but I know I'm sadly mistaken. These people really exist. They are there. They are real. Sure, they'll need a little prodding from time to time but generally speaking their delectations are genuine.

The success of this show with both the studio and home audiences can really only be explained by the wishful thinking factor: all participants (including those who already are stars), really want to be believe their time will also come one day; they too will strike it big and make a fast buck that could set them up for life and out of the low lands of moderate impoverishment.

That people really do put their hopes and dreams into this kind of starry-eyed belief system was illustrated recently when one mother of a turned-down auditioner said through tears: "they've ruined my daughter's life!" How little then, my dear, must your daughter's life have been worth and how unsuitable must she indeed have been for a life of stardom.

Therein lays of course the danger: that young people start accepting this kind of canned nonsense as a real role model and limit their aspirations to the vain hope of ever appearing on, let alone winning, this non-event.

It should come as no surprise that the X-Factor is most popular in the two countries that have the largest divide between rich and poor of the entire Western world: the UK and the US, where the "American Dream" really still is alive, much to the detriment of those masses of people who'll never amount to any kind of stardom. At best this shows gives a lot to those who already have a lot, and a little to one or two people who didn't have much in the first place, thereby perpetuating the "haves/have nots" divide further. No, Robin Hood it ain't...

And in the wake of these glossed-over plastic TV paradises where all protagonists are good looking (males) and sexy (females) comes also the further babefication, even pornification of what passes for entertainment on these shores...

Keywords: x-factor, reality-TV