"I'm craving reality"

"I'm craving reality". This was said by one of the Big Brother house mates last week. It was then said again by me today...

Today I also spent the longest stint of my life so far in the gym. Ok ok, so maybe there was a summer, say when I was seventeen, and had finally been let in on the knowledge that the gym played second home to some of my tiny towns hottest men. Again, total lie! In hindsight they were actually rather chunky and not muscley at all, but I am in no position to judge since I was not there to tone...

I happened to really enjoy my three hours (yes, THREE!) playing on the cross trainer, treadmill and even the bike with the hideously uncomfortable seat, but I would be lying if I claimed this was down to exercise and not arguably one of the most well known reality TV shows to date. Now let me reassure you that despite being an active lover of the trashy television genre, my feelings don't usually extend to Big Brother. I wouldn't dare sit at home for three hours watching BB in the middle of the day. Don't get me wrong, I see no shame in watching it at 10pm, after the run of hilariously dramatic soaps, but to me, during the light of day when you should be working, watching three hours straight of Big Brother is so very nearly as bad as laying on the sofa dazed by Jezza. Just sayin'

But I bloody loved it! I am usually more of a sucker for structured reality, but this series has had me hooked. Why? WHY? Why Amy? Because it actually shows us some REAL human emotion. That's why.

These poor buggers cooped up in that house don't always have the sweet deal their (maybe slightly naive) brains lead them to think they will get. A few things have come to my attention. What if the production company choose to vicitmise a housemate? Big Brother has control of what the housemates do, and what we as the viewers see. They have the ability to control their actions to cause friction and arguments, which although makes for fantastic watching, raises some serious questions on human rights and discrimination. We are then only able to see what they want us to see, exaggerating certain personality traits and provoking strong reactions of love or hate. Then there is all this bitching! The words two-faced gets tossed about more than some of them change their clothes, okay not the best example, but when you think about it, who else do they have to talk to? In a concentrated group of people you only have each other to talk to, or you vent to Big Brother. This is then built up with music and a clever commentary and voila! Shouting, screaming, laughing, crying and a few hours later... Gossip galore! Ayayayaaaa.

It really is, or in my opinion, just might be the most real reality TV out there right now. And tonight is THE night, the finale. There is exactly forty two minutes until we find out whether Sam, the peoples favourite or Dexter, this season's biggest game player wins the dollar and life long glory that rolls on with it. I am also leaving for holiday with the fam in three and a half hours. So I do apologise if this little ramble of thoughts hasn't tickled your taste buds for a bit of the BB hype, but I really must go and finish squeezing my too many shoes into my impractically small suitcase, and be off to get my tan on.

Adois Amigos!

P.S. If you are even remotely disappointed that you read this too late to catch the final, do not fear! Celebrity Big Brother starts this week again too!

P.P.S. Big Brother you probably now owe me money for promoting you to every dick and harry I come across and yes I know I sound like I watch too much TV. Whoooooops!

It's a Doll's Life!

Yes we all know it's a dog's life really. A typical day for my dog consist of bangers and mash, and various medication smothered in pate, sleep, a short walk with fussing and treats from every person passed, before sleep, another serving of bangers and mash, soaked in gravy this time (not doggy style, Bisto, yannooo the good stuff) and then back to the sofa for more sleep. She may be an old girl, and an absolute beauty even if I do say so myself, but seriously? Living the life! Not sure whether living is quite what these 'Human Barbie Dolls' are doing mind...

The Barbie 'Epidemic', a new, deadly serious craze where girls are emulating Barbie. Barbie Culture, is a whole other world where Barbie isn't just the doll whose hair you combed as a kid, fake married to Ken, or if like me, found great satisfaction in pulling their heads off. Oh no, Barbie is a way of life for some people. Believe it or not, it is the less extreme fans that spend their entire lives and fortune around auctions and meetings, trading and indulging in everything Barbie. The hardcore lovers, leaders of the phenomenon if you wish, are Barbie's real life parallels in popular culture.

At first glance, it was human Barbie Doll Valeria Lukyanova's online persona that caused a stir and allegations that it was merely, although undeniably clever, photoshopping that was creating her surreal features. However, now famous not only for her face, but her tiny 18 inch waist too, her extreme doll-like appearance, apparently the result of extensive plastic surgery and trickery in make-up has caused uproar with psychologists. In an interview in Grazia she claimed that she never sought to be Barbie and struggled to explain her motivation for pursuing the unhealthy obsession but that "the world is cruel and it's easier to live in a fairy tale". Her looks and reasoning relate to both reality and fantasy simultaneously, and this hyperreality is adding to the blurred boundaries in today's society. 

It would be too easy to say this extreme behaviour is the result of society's obsession with looks, because let's face it, those people just shove on an extra layer, or two of foundation and strip off another layer, again or two, of clothing. The theory that women are struggling to cope with reality is a much more likely explanation. Barbie with her perfectly symmetrical face, slender and ridiculously out of proportion figure, sparkling skin and static smile, and the women emulating this, couldn't paint a more faint picture. In trying to recreate a real, living, walking, talking Barbie, they couldn't look more fake. However, they are living their lives through this commitment to the fake, causing fear that people won't be able to tell the difference on what's real anymore.

Are they the fake real or the real fake? It seems Barbie is as much a threat as a promise. Ultimately Barbie eludes us, society is escaping reality through recreating a fake real. This is an extreme case but if you ask me, the vacant plastic stare of Barbie is a very human, very real metaphor for the empty void in today's culture, which is being ignored by living in a fantasy world.

I'm a Barbie Girl, in a Barbie world. Life in plastic, it's fantastic...

p.s. There is a human 'Ken Doll' too, who looks just as hilarious as his plastic idol, so it's not just us women who've got our ideas all out of whack and maybe a tad crazy.

Big Mac Please.

There is no such thing as real TV. We only ever see what has previously been decided we can, be that by directors of structured reality TV shows editing hours of footage into thirty minutes of confused drama or people of power dictating how much of the truth we are informed on. Reality TV may be the most dishonest of television of all. Labelled real and the authentic, but concerned less with documenting the real world than entertaining large audiences and boosting ratings.

Ultimately, we, the people, want what we want. You don't go to McDonalds when your on a diet. We are told the meat is 100% but we don't believe it. We get off our high horse (pun not initially intended but I'm gunna roll with it) and we eat it. And we enjoy it! Reality TV shows are doing exactly the same thing. Packaged as the real thing, but blindingly obvious that it isn't. But do we care? No. We live through our own reality everyday of our lives, so why would we want to sit and watch others do the same. We want this reality with a little extra spice.

Just food for thought.

None of the above images are my own, just a play on pictures courtesy of the internet. Enjoy!

“In writing, you must kill all your darlings”

Quote of the day goes to William Faulkner. Or more specifically, the Fine Art tutor who works the other side of the white wall, who quoted William Faulkner when suggesting that your best works are often not those you sit smugly grinning at after hours of editing but in fact, those that are in a sense, boshed out. I hold my hands up to being one of these anal editors. Faulkner also said, "Don't be a writer. Be Writing." So here goes a new start, no edits, no darlings, just writing.

p.s. Blame my tutors for your pain of having to suffer my thoughts and opinions online. All in the name of Fashion Design...

Reality TV has created "a world without surprises" (Boyle 2004:126) and whether you are a lover of a hater, there is no denying the fact that reality television has seen a global explosion of popularity in the twenty first century. I am a lover. And this love is an intense and complicated long term affair.

Some argue that Reality TV is just a passing fad in light entertainment and should not be taken so seriously. The Kardashian's even came top in a poll for what the women of the United Kingdom planned to give up for their 2013 new years resolutions. Now I don't believe that the magazine flicking that led me to that piece of trivia involved anything remotely trashy, trash being a common association of the reality TV phenomenon. But, seriously, giving up Kim K and the rest of her clan? And don't even get me started on the stars from Chelsea, Essex and Newcastle...galore! What LIARS!!! Or were they just in denial? Reality TV is just one aspect of a broader shift in public life. It is an evolution, not a revolution and definitely here to stay.

Now, before all you haters go clicking the 'back' button and skipping off to something more academic, "more enlightening or worthwhile than popular culture" (Strinati 1995: 41), hold up.  I'll have you other people know, whether you be intellectuals, political leaders or moral or social reformers that dispute that today's population should be devoted to more constructive pursuits such as art or politics, I am no passive watcher. Popular culture is not homogeneous, and understandably not for everybody, but the cheap genre of television doesn't just offer us spectacle in the comfort of our own living rooms, but is a strange world that acts as a more exciting, and more real "substitute for reality" (Eco 1998: 8). And this I find fascinating.

There is no such thing as 'real TV', just different degrees of 'un-realness' and it's safe to say that reality TV is a complex subject that produces illusion, then by confessing it, stimulates the desire for it. Reality TV can give us more reality than real life itself can and this confusion in authenticity and hyperreality is baffling, and far from the dumb and simple stereotyping us fashion girls get stick for. "The real world is perhaps in terminal decline" (Stallabrass in Boyle 2004: 181) and I think that makes Reality TV a pressing topic of today's popular culture.

So if you're still reading, and still claim to hate reality TV, like my Dad, but still watch it when your channel flicking lands upon it, I ask you why? Why do you watch it if you hate it? Why does it get your blood boiling at the thought of these 'nobodies getting famous'? Why does Reality TV provoke such strong reactions?

To be continued...