 |
Current mood:  bitchy Category: Jobs, Work, Careers
I've just had my first taste of reality TV today, I took part in a programme called 'Better Off Wed' that will be shown on E4 in November. Here is a description of the programme taken off its website:
Better Off Wed will ask couples to stop and honestly evaluate whether they are compatible enough to make a lifelong commitment to each other. Our couples will watch their relationship play out in front of their wedding congregation, before they are asked to make the biggest decision of their lives – do they really think they are better off wed? If they do then there's no better time or place for their wedding ceremony than right there and then. Better Off Wed aims to help couples make a huge decision whilst offering the viewer a real insight into modern relationships.
The filming I did today involved a group of panelists trying to work out the compatiblity of a few couples.In the exercise, we were shown a photo of one half of the couple and five possible candidates who could be their other half. Of course, whilst the objective of the exericse is to try to match each photo with the right partner, it just descended into a free-for-all mudslinging match. Here's a comment I overheard from another panelist:
"Oh fuck. That woman... is the kind of woman you'll ignore in a club, and only pull when you get to the kebab shop at 4 am."
And when I saw the same photo, I had this to say about her.
"She's obviously lost all interest of trying to look attractive for anyone - look at her chunky plastic glasses and what she is wearing. I would be very surprised if she has ever gone out with anyone attractive because someone like her would feel so inadquate with someone verging on attractive. She'll probably end up marrying some fat and ugly bloke who doesn't care how unattractive she is because he's equally tragic"
I added, "There's a difference between simply looking geeky and being plain unattractive. All a geek needs is a make-over, someone's who's plain unattractive needs plastic surgery. And for her, I would suggest starting with her receding hairline. I mean, how many women have receding hairlines?"
I finished by saying, "Her fiance isn't ugly but he has a criminal dress sense, so he probably doesn't know the difference between what's attractive and what's ugly - that's why he's going out with her. And for wearing that ugly top in that photo, he deserves to be marrying someone like that. But hey, by that token, that makes them a perfect match."
OK, we were very cruel. Needlessly cruel. But this woman was minging. I swear, what was she thinking going on reality TV putting herself up for this kind of abuse? I hope she gets paid well for it.
And then from that point on, it was like, bring it on baby - the producers loved the bitchiness and encouraged it - they told me it was funny and made good TV. So okay, I had plenty more venom for the rest of the show. Here's another good one I came up with:
"You can tell a lot about a person from his appearance. Take this guy for example. If this is the state of his face and his clothes, can you imagine what his bedroom or kitchen would look like? If he can't even be asked to make an effort to look presentable before having his picture taken for a TV programme, then he certainly will not be the kind of man to bother to keep his house neat and tidy. Now would you want to marry a man like that? I didn't think so."
Now there were other panelists who were very quiet. There was this student who came along and all she said all day to me was, "I have a headache / I'm sleepy / I wanna go home." And when asked for her opinion, she usually just shrugged her shoulders and said, "I dunno, I just think they look good together."
I can tell you that she's not going to be used much in this programme, that's for sure.
And there was this other girl, who looked like a page 3 model. She turned up with the shortest skirt ever and midway through the shoot, half a nipple popped out of her top. Yup, she wore such a low cut blouse and was not wearing a bra - and being quite animated, she swung her arms around as she talked and suddenly, I could just make out the dark brown part of her nipple emerging against her pale eggshell biege skin. I whispered to another panelist, "does she realize what is happening?" And the reply was, "Some people would do anything to get on TV."
Whilst there were about 20 panelists today, 3 stood out from everyone else - the two nastiest bitches (me and the "kebab shop" comment guy) and Miss half a nipple. But the thing is, can you actually go on reality TV programmes like that and just be nice? Now don't tell me Shilpa Shetty was nice - her case was different. She was bullied and won on a wave of sympathy votes. However, how many nice contestants were actually remembered eh? I thought, well fuck it, I'm not even going to appear on TV if I am nice so I may as well risk offending these people I don't know and be a real bitch for what it's worth. I just hope they live in somewhere like Aberdeen, Swansea or Hull and I'll never meet them - cos I was just downright cruel today. I should be ashamed of myself - but hey, I'm a shameless self-publicist when it comes to my acting career and I do whatever I have to do.
Alex
12:01 AM
Powered by  | | English | | Albanian | | Arabic | | Bulgarian | | Catalan | | Chinese | | Croatian | | Czech | | Danish | | Dutch | | Estonian | | Filipino | | Finnish | | French | | Galician | | German | | Greek | | Hebrew | | Hindi | | Hungarian | | Indonesian | | Italian | | Japanese | | Korean | | Latvian | | Lithuanian | | Maltese | | Norwegian | | Polish | | Portuguese | | Romanian | | Russian | | Serbian | | Slovak | | Slovenian | | Spanish | | Swedish | | Thai | | Turkish | | Ukrainian | | Vietnamese |
|