Thursday, 3rd March 2005.

He's behind you

Fame Academy baffles me.

Not the show itself, at least not so much. It seems to be merely a by-product of the Andy Warhol complex, which has been twisted and stretched beyond all recognition: people who want to be famous purely for the sake of being famous, as opposed to wanting to actually give something back. While I'd hate to second-guess the motives of every single contestant, their overall superficiality seems to be symptomatic of a culture that wants all the glamour with no depth whatsoever - and that's before we get onto the fact that as far as moral principles are concerned, calling a show 'Fame Academy' is asking for trouble. There's nothing wrong with fame in itself, of course, but only as a by-product of actually doing something worthwhile. Being in this game solely to be famous is like being in business solely to make money: it's an empty, soul-destroying approach. The fame game is hardly nothing new, and while it's fair to say that the Spice Girls seem to have pioneered it for the MTV Generation, it's also fair to say that shows such as Fame Academy and Pop Idol are not responsible for the problem in itself - merely for making it worse.

Neither am I baffled by the presence of Patrick Kielty, possibly the least interesting host for anything since - well, Davina McCall, with whom he shares a general sense of discomfort and awkwardness when it comes to addressing the contestants. Nor the inexplicable appeal of the omnipresent Cat Deeley, this year's Carol Vorderman (at least where scheduling is concerned), who comes across as a vacuous and insipid Barbie doll - able to turn heads when she's wearing the right dress, but whose good fortune in the looks department is merely a form of well-orchestrated compensation for the fact that she seems to have absolutely no personality whatsoever.

No, what baffles me is the audience. After sitting through an hour of Comic Relief-related dross during last night's prime time viewing, I am more confused about general British intelligence levels than ever before. Anyone trying to measure sense and sensibility would hardly look to the mob attending a glorified karaoke contest as a shining example of British excellence. At the same time, it's fair to say that this is supposed to be music for the masses, and the show's popularity allegedly speaks volumes (although I swear that if I hear one more stiff-suited A&R man talking about "giving the people what they want", I am going to shove a microphone up his arse).

Fame Academy's chief obstacle - and one that it has yet to overcome - is that of the judges' inability to give criticism, be it constructive or otherwise. Part of this is, we suspect, genetic, or at least grounded in sociological awareness. Lesley Garrett, for example, was keen to heap praise upon the contestants in horrific, saccharine-drenched outpourings of how well they'd sung, and what a great improvement they'd made on the last performance. Much like Robin Gibb before her, Lesley seems determined to make her mark by being as nice as possible, at least to begin with. It could be argued, of course, that this is a valid and commendable style of feedback, and that to encourage the contestant who's been lousy that night is a good way of helping them improve. Or it's equally possible that her approach is a result of downright fear of the inevitable audience reaction. My guess is that her mindset lies somewhere between the two extremes.

Now let's look at Richard Parks. Middle aged and greying, Parks looks more like a member of the House of Lords, or a fox hunt supporter (or both) than the director of a stage school. Parks comes across as being an unpleasant and slightly ill-mannered person, who is nonetheless in possession of some valued opinions. The problem is that we seldom get to hear them.

"Now," says Patrick, hand awkwardly placed on the forearm of the spent contestant, "Richard, what did you think of Konnie's performance?"
"Well, I - "
"Boooo!"
"I mean, I thought - "
"Booo! <Hissssss>"
"It wasn't very *good*, really, was it?"
More boos, and from the corner of the audience, an unseen cry of "Wanker!" That's live TV for you.
"I can offer some adv-"
"BOOOO!" Beer bottles, the remains of hot dogs pelted in his direction.

I exaggerate only slightly. There is an inherent hostility to nigh on everything that Richard Parks says, regardless of whether it's constructive, or just plain rude. This extends to the other judges, who have their praise cheered and their criticism rebuffed, or drowned out completely by the cattle who sit behind them. What's more, the judges (particularly Parks) are seldom allowed to finish a comment before Patrick / Cat moves on to the next, or turns abruptly to the camera with the words "Well, it doesn't matter what they think, remember it's you watching at home who get to make that decision, so here's the number!". It's tempting to lay the blame for this tendency to moe on far too quickly at the feet of our eternally awkward hosts, until you remember that the programme's producers are trying to cram far too much into the space of an hour to discuss it in any depth, and that at any given time there is almost certainly at least one person screaming into the annoying Irishman's earpiece, yelling "Wrap it up! Move along! Remember, you're a conveyor belt! A CONVEYOR BELT!".

So much for the presenters. What are we to make of this horrifying phenomenon, this obsession with praise at the extent of criticism? It's one thing to accuse the judges of nastiness if they are perhaps overly harsh (as I did feel they were once or twice), but another to undercut practically every single thing they say with a chorus of jeers and catcalls. The hypocrisy is one thing - it's the sort of rudeness that the audience are supposed to be condemning in the first place - but even more worrying is the sense of overly liberal political correctness that seems to be pervading society. There's no real feeling of competition here: it's merely a group of people getting together and singing rather badly, and being told they're wonderful. According to the audience, they're not allowed to grow - they're already there. Of course we have evictions and polls, but the Star Trek mentality of self-improvement is hampered by the fact that the audience simply won't let it happen.

This is suffocating and unhealthy - and, I'm sad to say, typical. The concept of sports day is gradually being phased out in schools nationwide, as what was previously referred to as 'healthy competition' is now, to all intents and purposes, viewed purely as an oxymoron. It may be true that the taking part is more important than the winning, but if we're taught - as Fame Academy's audience seems to have been taught - that everything you do will be greeted with a standing ovation, then what's the point of trying at all? When you slot in this rationality with the Andy Warhol complex and combine it with the time-saving technology that has saturated our consumer-driven society, the MTV generation's impatience suddenly makes a whole lot of sense. We're told that not only can we have everything straight away - even waiting for two or three days for a parcel to arrive from Amazon seems intolerable - but that we don't even need to work our way up through the ranks. We don't need to become good - we already are good, without exception. And for anyone to even suggest otherwise, civilly or not, is incredibly unreasonable, and the sort of behaviour that warrants angry scenes outside stage doors, hate mail, and even death threats.

It's possible, of course, that all this is a joke, and that I've missed the point entirely. Let's examine that possibility. When one attends a pantomime, there's always a knowing wink. The villain is booed and hissed even more than the Pop Idol judges, but it's all part of the act: a melodramatic hyperbole of good and evil, with thoroughly nasty characters who have very few redeeming features - and who, come the final curtain, have either reformed completely or met an appropriately grizzly end. And the audience reaction is half the fun of it. Which leads me to wonder whether we should view these karaoke contests in the same fashion: whether the high-trousered Simon Cowell, the disciplinarian Richard Parks or the could-have-been-Peter-Cook's-love-child Nigel Lythgoe are actually this generation's candidates for King Rat, Abanazar and Fleshcreep, respectively.

However, the translation of the pantomime imagery to Pop Idol et al. leaves one anomaly: the mob. It would be less of an issue, of course, if the crowd were made up of the sorts of young children who become genuinely upset when Snow White eats the poisoned apple, due to their inability to tell fantasy apart from reality (an excusable trait which is, for the most part, purely a result of age). But these are teenagers, and students, twenty-somethings, and upwards - they're frankly old enough to know better. And therein lies the problem: I know that this is not a Big Deal; that there are more important problems in the world, and that to a certain extent I'm not really supposed to take this seriously. But it's difficult not to when it becomes apparent that the audience does.

Now, where did I put my microphone...?