Friday, 27th March 2009
The Tru(wo)man Show
We have moved a long way since Peter Weir 1998 film The Truman Show. Whether we moved forward of backwards is another question altogether. The protagonist, Truman Burbank, was born for TV and lived for TV, albeit unknowingly. A corporation adopted him at birth and every moment of his life was lived in front of hidden TV cameras. The island on which he lived was a large TV set. All the participants were actors. Everyone knew what was happening bar Truman. He made millions happy by giving them something to love for. He made his “creator” – the reckless TV producer with the name of Christof – happy. However, Truman Burbank was not happy. Finally, he discovered what was happening and, against all odds, managed to escape.
The mother of all perversions
Since Truman, more and more people are living their lives in front of video camera. At this moment, I am not referring to participants in reality TV shows. I am referring to people like you and me who use elevators, go to supermarkets, buy from the village grocer, drive along our arterial roads, use banks … The list of places covered by CCTV cameras grows longer and longer.
It is almost impossible to-day to spend a day without being recorded by some camera or other. Those who think that they can escape are mistaken. Even if you plot the position of all the security cameras that turned the Western world into a TV set larger than that of Truman, you are mistaken. The cameras of Google Earth will take care of your presumed craftiness. They will catch you sunbathing on your rooftop or strolling along some secluded beach with someone that you would have preferred not to be seen together with.
Privacy is a thing of the past. In Orwell’s 1984 the loss was looked at the ultimate depravation. Today the yearning for privacy is being increasingly considered as the mother of all perversions. On TV’s chat shows people dare to say what yesterday was considered to be to intimate to recount in the privacy of the confessional or the couch of one’s shrink. The social networks make it easy for all and one to extend their circles of intimacy even to total strangers.
I am not being evaluative. I am just being descriptive. People’s concept of privacy has changed along the centuries; so what’s wrong with another change in the privacy paradigm? As McLuhan ably shows, our own concept of privacy was more the result of Gutenburg’s famous contraption than the conclusion of philosophical reflections on human nature.
I digressed, though. Let me return to my subject, i.e.
The cult of the talentless celebrity
Truman was conned into being a TV star. He was not happy. He was satisfied only when he excaped. He was unwittingly thrust in front of a TV camera at birth but did not want that same camera to broadcast his death.
Jade Goody who died last Sunday (March 21, 2009) and will be buried next Wednesday (April 1) can be compared and contrasted to Truman. Like him, she lived for TV. Unlike him, she did it willingly. Her public persona was created by TV. Her fulfilment was achieved by living in front of the TV cameras and almost literally dying in front of them as well.
After being catapulted into fame thanks to her participation in the third series of Big Brother in 2002 she became the ultimate mediatised person. A writer for the electronic version of The Telegraph described her as the poster girl of the curious contemporary cult of talentless celebrity. His judgment, though harsh, has an element of truth. What else can one say about a person who thinks that Pistacchio painted the Mona Lisa or that Rio de Janeiro was a man?
The tabloids tore into her during her participation in Big Brother. The Sun called her a hippo, then a baboon, before launching its campaign to "vote out the pig". The Sunday Mirror refused to call her as pig as this would have been “insulting – to pigs". She established herself as a great ignoramus and became more unpopular even than Saddam Hussein (whom Jade believed to be a boxer).
Jade’s shallowness and lack of tact came to the fore in 2007 during her participation in Celebrity Big Brother. She drew the ire of thousands after she racially bullied the Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty. In India she was burned in effigy. The television regulator Ofcom received more than 40,000 complaints from outraged members of the public.
Her scent was withdrawn from the stores; the paperback version of her autobiography was scrapped and the television offers dried up. A well-organised rehabilitation campaign that included a number of apologies and reconciliation with Shilpa climaxed in an invitation to take part in Big Boss – the Indian reality show.
A Tru(wo)man Show after all
All the above notwithstanding Jade Goody was loved: she redeemed herself after the 2002 fiasco and the second fiasco of 2007; and I don’t think that all this redemption came just as a result of good PR. The comment of the writer in The Telegraph was too harsh after all. One can be talentless but be very lovable just the same. She showed that she had talent that made her lovable and also to transcend her own problems and reach out to others.
During the great media blitz of the 2002 Big Brother people started warming up to her. They perceived her as forthright, honest and vulnerable. The tabloids had to follow suit. There was good reason to perceive her as such since a mother who was a petty thief had raised her in a run-down area of southeast London. Her father was a small-time pimp turned career criminal. Jade rolled her first joint for her mother when she was four and she took her first puff aged five. People felt they wanted to give her the love that she was denied when still very young. People always love the underdog who manages to make a success.
Her participation in the Indian Big Boss was both her death knell and her road to rehabilitation and success. During a live transmission from the “confessional” of the show, she was informed that she had terminal cervical cancer. She was devastated. All the participants were devastated. All the viewers were devastated. Goody bravely decided to spend the final months of her life in front of TV cameras campaigning to raise awareness about cervical cancer. She was transformed into a serious figure whose frankness about her illness benefitted the thousands who, for the first time, decided to go for a smear test. She won the respect of many.
The Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, who heads the Church of England, said Goody showed a brave side in the face of death. "If in her earlier career it was all about her, then I think at the end it was about something else," Williams said. Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales, praised her bravery. So did the British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown. "She was a courageous woman both in life and death and the whole country have admired her determination … and her family can be extremely proud of the work she has done to raise awareness of cervical cancer which will benefit thousands of women.”
I borrow my conclusion from one of the journalists of the on line version of The Guardian: The pig who deserved burning had become our sacrificial lamb, garnished with sentiment. Britain had turned 180 degrees to embrace a woman it had earlier scorned.
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Comments
However - whether we like it or not - modern technology is shaping a different society, and values are changing accordingly.
I cannot help but point out that where not so long ago Peeping-toms were considered as perverts, nowadays, the average televiewer (myself included) seems to be peeping without a second thought. Obviously the producers of Reality shows exercise some control on what could be shown and what could not - at least up to now. In the future - who knows???
I tend to agree with Mr. Portelli that we should “not mix CCTV in public places with broadcast material of pseudo-private matters.” Whoever participates in Reality shows is doing it freely and happily. They are exhibitionists who have found a showcase wherein they could make a spectacle of themselves for the scrutiny of the general public.
Whether they make a fool of themselves, or emerge with flying colours, is up to them.
We should not be too hasty in criticizing shows that make use of such modern technology, for thanks to such exposure, people who want to break into the TV business or to make some sort of impact which could benefit them for a future career, have an opportunity to reveal their personality which is bound to emerge as the show unfolds.
Continued…
I understand your point; However one thing leads to another. Today its only CCTVs (slowly leadinh us to believe its normal), tomorrow more sophisticated technology. There is software that ensables one to see real time views from satellite already.
you did give some good examples and you i admit its hard to argue against ...apart from one....truant employees....in SOME cases i don´t blame them. Maybe you don´t know how its like working for some people and companies. working under horrible conditions.
also, where do we set limits on CCTVs? Although I myself find it hard to believe many times, perhaps social systems might be themselves the cause of criminal or any other deviant behavior. Has the person failed, or the system, or a bit of both maybe? I must say CCTVs are a pragmatic solution to a current problem, however, I also believe that a quick fix will not be a solution in the long run. There is still, I believe, too much of a thirst for power and control without the right intentions; and too much pride for anyone to be willing to be controlled or overpowered by such means.
I cannot think of any serious objection to CCTV cameras in public places prone to criminal activity apart, that is, from criminals who would not like to be identified while plying their trade, truant employees who should be at their workplace but are shopping instead, others who should be sick in bed out of reach of CCTV cameras, others who unbeknown to their marriage partners are in illicit company, et similia. If anyone has something to hide he might just as well object to other passers keeping their eyes open and not only to CCTV cameras!
There are people watching the CCTV and you have no clue who they are. Is it fine for you to give this power to some few people? its not fine by me. I don´t care about being on TV, its this power given to the ones behind the camera to spy on a potential criminal (everyone in this case) that bothers me.
´I'm for reality, because it's just a name for great content which fits in perfectly with our social networks of this time and age. Because we have the technology we want to be connected, constantly connected by choice. ´ Do you really belive that our choice is so obvious? is it you who decides the social networks of this time and age or rather the architects of the systems, technology and the whole marketing behind it?
I feel that you have taken your freedom for granted my friend.
From the looks of the comments made, Jade (there are plenty of other people with terminal cancer, who perhaps life few blocks away from you) seems to be the main concern rather that the whole loss of privacy and freedom and values in our comtemporary world. How submissive our world has become!? How twisted have our priorities have become!? So long as we can shed a tear and feel alive sitting comfi on our couch.
Endemol’s Big Brother is an entertaining social experiment which is now losing most of its reality and becoming more of a soap opera with a loose script. To keep the show running BB producers are made to intervene more and more while casting is not tied to how real a person can behave but on how diverse can the characters be. Participants act most of the time by regulating their behavior according to how they believe the audience is reacting to their act. We're not being watched upon, but instead normal people have found a stage over-looking the world, or their country. Jade knew this very well. Her best reality-act started the moment she was informed of her terminal cancer. Her final-act. I'm for reality, because it's just a name for great content which fits in perfectly with our social networks of this time and age. Because we have the technology we want to be connected, constantly connected by choice. When in TV language we say or hear of 'reality format' (not 'real lives') we should understand its connotation like we do when a rock star says he's 'high' or when a film director says 'rolling'.
I don't like it and don't agree when people mix CCTV in public places with broadcast material of pseudo-private matters. I say so because (a) I don't believe that CCTV cameras in public places film anything which can or should be considered private; eg. walking in front of a building or entering a bank is not private, (b) nothing is broadcasted (on TV) if consent is not given by the person followed by the camera. Because Big Brother (the show) decided to use the name conned by George Orwell to depict a futuristic dictator who having technology in hand used it to control people's actions and freedom, doesn't mean that the true meaning of the show is that. Don’t you think that had the technology been available to Hitler he would have used it as part of his plans to make ‘a perfect race’?
Your words have without doubt given me a very thoughtful end to freedom day. Having spent the day to its fullest with my wife and daughter I need no effort grasping the meaning or value of life, although a friendly reminder, such as yours, is always helpful.
“We are born to die so what is the purpose of living?”
I'm not sure I'm strange in some way, but it's a question I very rarely ask. We are not born to die, we are born to live. Life isn't fair or unfair, it just is and all we can hope for is having the fortitude to always do our best.
Remarkably I think Jade really managed to live her life to the fullest in her last few days of her life. She had struggled through quite a few hardships in her life and despite being obnoxious, ignorant, irritating, or whatever you want to call her, she managed to inspire a whole nation in her dieing days. For that her time in the spotlight have greatly surpassed her untimely death.
Part 2.
Life is a journey into unexplored waters, an adventure of experiences acquired along the way. It could be an exciting journey for some, but sadly to some others, life can be a series of hardships. But man is an adaptable animal and has inherent resources that fight and thrive for happiness, but why does one man have to be born in a third world country, torn by civil wars and accompanied by poverty, while another man is born with a silver spoon in his mouth with all the privileges it entails? Life is so unfair!
But man has the power to shape the world for the better if he could channel his nobler traits for the good of mankind. If such were the case, then definitely birth and death would have revealed the purpose of man, for his life would have been fruitful, rewarding, and consequently, fulfilling.
Part 1.
“Her death raises so many questions about the fragility of life and its carpe diem.”
We do not ask to be born, but once we are thrown into the world we are expected to fend for ourselves and make the most of it. Life is a precious gift and we naturally do our utmost to preserve it. Even minor ailments are not brushed off as insignificant especially nowadays, when we are so much aware of how ephemeral life really is. There are times when we are so afraid of the looming threat of terminal diseases that we tend to question why man has to go through all this suffering.
“We are born to die so what is the purpose of living?” I often ask myself.
I know that we can create a purpose for living once we get to a stage where we consciously can work for that aim. The fulfillment of our dreams, for one, could grant us a purpose in life even if it is a painful climb.
Her death raises so many questions about the fragility of life and its carpe diem. I, for one, have made a decision following her story that led to her untimely death. God rest your soul Jade.
This Big Brother reality show is most appalling in taste, and in learning bad behaviour. Far from being educational, it gives us "hints" on what we should not be.
We should not wash our dirty linen in public, and Jade simply does that, without any hesitation. This utter love for the mass media (the person inside the TV and the viewers) can prove useful for the hidden agenda or the big brother government watching you.
The idea is simple, rather than informing the public that you are being filmed and hating it, a sure but progressive monitored public is being done during these last decades. London is the most monitored city in the world Big brother reality shows, now available in most Western countries, desentizise the element of privacy, which is what they want.
Some author called the media as the 5th power. Control the newspapers and the TV, you will have a powerful cocktail to divert the human population, to their agenda, and Big Brother TV, is just that.
The more base, and "open" the show/personality the more people tune into it. This is most unfortunate, as people learn likewise.
The media can be heartless as clearly shown by it opting to publicly announce Jade Goody’s terminal disease during her live transmission from the “confessional”. Not even on something as personal and heart-rending as her imminent death did it allow Jade to come to terms with her sorrow in private. The media exploited the tragedy and got what it wanted.
The media can either make you or break you and Jade got a taste of both. But alas, when fame and acceptance came her way it was far too late. But Jade rose above her tragedy. In the end she was the one to exploit the media by using it to raise awareness about cervical cancer and thus emerged a heroine, if not an icon.
The public awareness of cervical cancer got a tremendous boost from her exposure and I have no doubt many women will have their lives saved by her.
@ Robert Attard again:
When we pray for the departed souls to rest in peace, I like to think that we pray for the souls (who partake of the divinity of God) to be reunited with God, and not of raising the souls of the dead from the burning purgatory.
Purgatory, for me is a place (dimension) where the good souls are purging themselves of any minor imperfections before they reach a perfect state through our prayers.
Hell, to me, is not of the “fire and brimstone” type. I can conceive it as a different dimension where the lost souls, whose ultimate aim is to be reunited with God, are denied their union with God.
It is however, deplorable that we have lost our privacy as a result, for being watched by CCTV is not like being watched by God. It could have far reaching negative consequences! (my comment)
“Eternal 'torture and fire' can't be regarded as a positive consequence either.” (your comment)
I was expecting some such answer, however I never think of God as a God of wrath who would send sinners to burn in hell for eternity.
I believe that we are all meant to be saved.
I have a strange kind of relationship with God which might raise a few eyebrows.
I have always thought of God as a part of me – who belongs to me – who knows me through and through, and who would admonish me when I misbehave but would never deny me forgiveness. Actually I am comforted from having Him with me. He is my confidant. There are times when I abuse of His love for me, and there are times when I tend to blame Him for all my weaknesses, for I prefer to close an eye on my own free will.
And yes, I do not believe hell exists.
As a child I remember being struck by what the catechism teacher used to drum into our heads that God is, "Fis-sema, fl-art u kullimkien", and that if we misbehave God is sure to know about it for He can see everything. I remember looking around me trying to see if I could surprise God watching me, but that did not keep me from doing the naughty things children usually do, and neither did it condition me later on in life, for somehow it was something between me and God and HE was not going to tell.
It is a different story having all these CCTV cameras recording my movements and maybe having somebody behind them zooming in on me at the slightest suspicion aroused. But society has become so messed up that some kind of control was needed to deter crime, and one way to enforce the law was to catch the culprit red-handed so that justice could be meted out.
It is however, deprobale that we have lost our privacy as a result, for being watched by CCTV is not like being watched by God. It could have far reaching negative consequences!