Why Channel 4 is the new Daily Mail

Stephen Fry wrote in one of his newspaper columns years ago that the Daily mail was the very worse of the papers. Because while the Sun may be more offensive at times at least it was honest about what it was. A tabloid; where as the Mail left room to pretend it was a serious paper. It seems to me that the same thing has happened with Channel 4. They have become a channel for barely disguised freak shows. Five do this also but at least they know they are trash.

I wrote previously here about my deep and abiding love for Big Brother. So I am not somebody queueing up to slag them off on that score. The programme that has provoked my ire is Big Fat Gypsy Wedding.

The producers of the show would have you believe that this is a show whose aim is to promote a better understanding of the Traveller community. That's a phrase you hear a lot on the programme, 'The Travelling Community' as though they are one homogeneous bunch who all strictly adhere to the same norms and behaviours. Bollocks. I'm part of the English community but I have my own views on things. I imagine Travellers are exactly the same.

What the show really does promote is the chance for us to voyeurs on the lives of the people. You can almost hear the producers giggling in the background in evident delight at the next curious , you our eyes, thing that one of the participants does. They should drop the pretence and get Dave Lamb (to those who don't know the acerbic commentator of Come Dine With Me) to narrate it.

And the poor taste does not end there for Channel 4. There is the show about the exploration of modern myths about self image. This is another shitfest involving putting shallow, fame hungry young women with people with facial disfigurements. Again this is presented as some kind of hard hitting exploration of the vacuousness of our society and its obsession with beauty. When what it really is is a chance to watch pretty girls feel uncomfortable around people with facial disfigurements. I just hope they drop the final pretence and in the last scene have the people who are disfigured stand around the pretty girl chanting 'one of us, one of us, one of us...'