So why have the BAFTAs gone all Posh and Juicy?

When I first heard that The only Way Is Essex was nominated for a BAFTA last year, I thought it was some sort of late April Fool’s joke.  And so did everybody else it seems.  Despite being a life-long TOWIE fan (well, for the few years its been going at least), I had always associated the BAFTAs with serious film and television making.  The type of award ceremony that everyone who attended was expected to act very proper, incase the Queen made a surprise inspection.  And for the rest of TV, there was always the National Soap Awards to flash your knickers at.  So it did jar slightly when the cast of The only Way Is Essex dismayed everyone and actually won the award, voted for by the public.  Who’d have thought, hey?

However, despite TOWIE unfortunately not receiving any nominations this year, ripples from the splash they created have managed to still trickle down in to the nominations pool.  With Made in Chelsea, TOWIE’s biggest and poshest rivals being given a nod in the Reality and Constructed Factual category, as well as my personal favorite, Celebrity Juice, being nominated for two awards (including Best Entertainment Programme I’ll have you know), I am starting to wonder if the BAFTAs are finally getting off their high horses and finally taking note of what the majority of the Great British population actually enjoy.  And rewarding it rightly so.

Despite my toes curling at the very thought of an episode of Made in Chelsea, I can comprehend, unlike Jan Moir who ripped in to Caggie & Co courtesy of the Daily mail recently, that this form of ‘is it’ ‘isn’t it’ reality TV has in fact captured the attention of the nation, and there are few channels left who haven’t spawned their own docu-soap drama for your viewing pleasure.

And with regards to Celebrity Juice, I for one honestly relish clocking in with Keith, Holly Willobooby and Fearne once a week and laugh my head off after a hard day’s work.  Surely this deserves just as much credit as some serious crime drama blah blah blah.  Leigh Francis’ cult character Keith Lemon has even managed to land a spin-off, prime time Saturday show in the form of Lemonaid.  Even my Gran loves him now because of this, despite being strictly banned from watching any of his post watershed shows.

So all that remains now is to see if Hugo, Spencer and the rest of the Chelsea set follow in the footsteps of their BAFTA award-winning Essex counterparts and bring home the gong on May 27^th.  Not that Spencer needs his ego inflating anymore…

Winter’s Guilty TV Pleasures

There is nothing as satisfying as a guilty pleasure.  And mine tend to be confined to the realms of excruciatingly ‘bad’ music, magazines, and TV.  Hey, my DVD collection reads like a 12-year-old girl’s would.  So I have started to feel somewhat secretly blissfully happy with the return of two of my worst/best shows…and on the SAME night no less.  Two birds, one stone and all that.  And I have decided, once and for all, I will not be ashamed to discuss them and their many qualities…

First up, Tuesday night played host to the return of ‘Big Fat Gypsy Weddings’ on Channel 4.  With the Twittersphere going absolutely mad, I think it is safe to say I am not alone with my fascination in to the culture and traditions of the Gypsy community.  And with Channel 4’s extremely controversial billboard advertising campaign to promote the new series (you must have seen the ‘Bigger, Fatter, Gyspier’ billboards around London, no?), let’s face it, it didn’t disappoint.  And I do have to say, as an avid viewer and fashion lover, there just has to be some copyright issues using Diamantes to spell out designer names and logos on wedding dresses.  Baby Phat across your bustle anyone?!  The Chanel logo strewn on your Holy Communion dress, girls?!  But nit-picking aside, I have to admit I laughed my face off, as most of Twitter apparently did, at the young traveller girl with the name ‘Nangirl’.  Is she some kind of new hybrid Supergypsy?  We may never know…

Secondly, my new all-time favorite reality show, Geordie Shore is back with a literal ‘bang’.   If you are yet to give it a chance, please do, just for the mind baffling banter, quality one-liners and car-crash catfights.  Trust me, 10 mins of the Shore and you will feel like a Saint.  I have been assured by many Geordies it is giving the Tyne a bad name, but being a girl from Essex, and having to endure the TOWIE stereotype for far too long, I am secretly enjoying the ‘stereotype spotlight’ shining on our Northern friends for a change.

So please, if you would like to confess and divulge your bad TV habits to me, please do.  The question does remain however…who’d call their kid NANGIRL?

Reality TV Turf Wars

It has been described as the ‘evolution of reality TV’, and has seen the likes of The Only Way is Essex and Made In Chelsea become prime time viewing whilst relagating the nation’s previous favourite, Big Brother, to the TV graveyard that is Channel 5.  So what is it about these semi-scripted, at times cringe-inducing ‘docusoaps’ that have got the nation’s attention in a vice-like grip? 

With spin-off shows such as Geordie Shore, Sorority Girls and the soon-to-be-aired Desperate Scousewives all vying for viewing figures on various TV stations, it seems to be developing into a veritable turf war.  With these shows playing on stereotypes of certain demographics, it can be somewhat misleading, and to be honest, insulting to inhabitants of these cities.  Speaking from personal experience (an Essex girl myself) and having fought off Essex-based prejudice for most of my adult life it does become somewhat exhausting meeting strangers and having to explain that no, for the last time, I do NOT own a pair of white stilettos. While I am a fan of the show for entertainment value alone, it’s frustrating for me that while such powerful women as Helen Mirren hail from my county, it is the likes of the TOWIE cast that now represent the rest of us.

The light relief is that we are not the only ones afflicted with the reality TV curse – the people of South London and Newcastle now have their stereotypes highlighted for the nation to mock, and Liverpool is soon to follow. VICE magazine has even made a spoof version of a supposedly soon-to-air East London-based reality show (although MTV has denied all knowledge of such a thing). The first episode of Dalston Superstars went up on the magazine’s website last week and was quickly trending on Twitter, most tweets gasping that VICE seemed to be mocking their own tribe of Hackney hipsters more than anything else.  So beware, wherever you may reside, and whatever mould you may fit in to, you are not necessarily safe from MTV et al.