Thursday 3 January 2008

Just knock there heads together

It goes without saying I suppose that politics and reality Tv are echos of each other. Politics was no doubt the model from which reality TV sprang. That is, it is do doubt reality TV is the 'abstraction' of modern politics, where personal popularity, and worrying about the voters, has replaced (or been obliged to replace) any debate about serious issues. Initially perhaps this was fine and dandy. In a sense reality TV played here the role of the classic fool. It abstracted to the point of idiocy tendencies which where at first merely implicit within the democratic system. And yet problem is of course  the fool has very much taken over the palace, and politics  now appears to have become a (bad) reality TV show. 
Moreover politicians have added a new (and rather vapid) twist on the story. It is of course one of the  facets of reality TV that it clones itself. Big Bottom gave way to small Bottom or whatever.
Politics has run with this idea, but developed it in regard to contestants rather than shows. , Blair (the perfect non-real, reality politician) has given way to the clone of Blair (Cameron) and now the clone of the clone of blair (Clegg). Everyone wants a bit o the 'reality' action. Problem of course is that any like reality has been lost in the process.



For more of the same go
here

No comments: