Sick

I hate Britain's Got Talent. It is a sick example of everything bad about the world. It is on ITV. I hate Britain's Got Talent.

Being a pedant and someone seeking any distraction from meaningful, important work I researched the audition process for what is the most popular TV program in this shit hole of a country (The Wire got... actually I can't start on that) and there were some interesting things brought to light. Although I never thought that each and every contestant was brought before the triumvirate of evil that is Cowell, Holden and Morgan I did expect that they would have some role in the selection process. I was wrong. The thousands of people that apply are herded into a conference centre (or possibly warehouse with straw, troughs and copies of Heat) where they are quickly auditioned and (mostly) sent on their merry way, the "no" from the faceless member of the production staff ringing in their ears.

However a select few are given a yes. They fall, as the TV show demonstrates, into 2 distinct categories. The first category is comprised of those who are average singers and whose a] Mum has died b] Wife has died c] been in the army d] Does something different to the life they lead normally (this week there was a rugby player who sang Bill Withers. He was average). Despite the intense boredom that all of these types evoke the second set of contestants is vastly worse off. They are the people that have turned up at the warehouse/ conference centre unaware that they have no obvious talent usually due to a totally delusional personality or, and I am utterly serious, mental illness. These people are assessed to see if they will make good TV and brought down to a theatre to perform in front of the unholy trinity. I presume at this point they aren't notified that they are there to be laughed at and ridiculed by an entire nation otherwise, I hope, not many of them would turn up. Instead they are simply invited down to London/Belfast/Manchester to audtion in front of the worlds three most talentless and famous people. These people are already delusional. They beleive they have the capacity to be internationally famous recording artists, dancers and ventriliquists. If they are told to come and audition in front of the main judging panel, being one of the select few that make it through from the Slaughterhouse proceedures that is the initial stages, I'd imagine their reaction wouldn't be one of cautious optimism and tempered anticipation. It would be seen as validation and confirmation of the talent they already knew they had. Dreams that had just been dreams for a lifetime would be given credence, possibilities that had been far off hopes would now be just one more amazing audtion away. Instead these people are being brought out to be laughed at for our pity and scorn. Look, we sneer, that stupid man thinks he's a good DJ, what an utter imbecile! Why on earth would ever go to audtion in front of Simon Cowell and the other luminaries? He's wasting their time Godammit they've got another Paul Potts to find! In reality they are there because they have been asked, selected, chosen from thousands of other hopefuls given false hope and been fed with non commital promises. They are there so thousands of fat, mindless ITV watching idiots around the country can laugh at them and feel thankful that the person who can't really dance and is being jeered by a theatre-full of chlamydia ridden teenage girls with perma tans and aspirations of WAGness whilst they sit comfortably in the living room filling their faces with Dominoes and coke.

Is that what we want our primary source of entertainment to be? If it is then I think the joke is firmly on us.