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Monday 22 August 2011

Celebrity documentaries are the last thing on my list

Oh dear, I am in a dilemma.  Should I watch ‘What Katie did Next’ on the television, or paint drying?  Whilst watching paint drying is undoubtedly one of the most boring ways to spend my time imaginable, I would rather gnaw away at my own hand than watch Miss Price take her weekly trip to the salon. 

This isn’t at all a way of fuelling an attack on Katie Price; I simply don’t care what she supposedly did next.  Likewise for Kerry Katona and Peter Andre, frankly the thought of their ‘Next Chapter,’ as they call it leaves me feeling completely underwhelmed.  Not because I don’t like these people, they have all clearly worked hard to get to where they are at, but I honestly don’t see the point of ‘celebrity home documentaries.’

Picture yourself when you wake up in the morning, you have just woken up but you would much rather go back to sleep.  You take a second to acknowledge how luxuriously comfortable your bed actually is.  You’re eyes are going and you can feel yourself slowly drifting off to... ‘Wake up!’ A hard nudge and you’re awake.  ‘And we’re filming in 5, 4, 3, 2-’ I don’t know about you, but to find a camera in my face when I have just woken up, my hair resembling a toilet brush (as it does in the morning) and my mood as sour as a lemon that has gone off, I would be far from happy.Nevertheless, celebrities can somehow cope with this. Camera crews are welcomed with open arms into their lives; if it means having their moment in the sun then surely they can cope with every Tom, Dick and Harry running round after them? Get up; get filmed, on telly in a couple of months- easy as pie.  

They are filmed doing the day to day things that we all do.  Cooking for example, when we commoners do it- well that’s it really, we cook; we eat our food- done.  But when we see that a celebrity can master the art of cooking a Sunday dinner- it’s the second coming!  To the worlds dismay I have to inform you that water will regrettably not be turned into wine because the undeniable truth is that... they are normal people.  They cook, they eat- only their Sunday roast graces thousands of Britain’s television screens.

However, it isn’t all happiness and Sunday roasts.  One family, one camera crew, and many months of filming can’t be good for any family.  Everything appears to be going fine; we have even stretched to being almost jealous of their visibly perfect lives until.... the argument happens.  The ‘perfect life’ facade immediately vanishes as we watch the home truths of the family unravel into an eruption of an argument.  Insults and remarks are thrown back and forth like a tennis match; whilst we feel all the more uncomfortable watching people we don’t even know treating each other so badly.  So we should! If I was having an argument with my family, I would hate the thought of someone being able to pause and rewind it on their televisions, using it as a tool for their own amusement.

Saying that though, some of the arguments are as ‘real’ as the people taking part in the show.  In other words they are fake.  I’m aware that families do have the occasional shouting match, but given the choice, why on earth would they have it in front of a camera?  Yes, these shows involve celebrities being followed around by cameras a lot, but not every minute of every day- meaning they can save the argument for when the camera crew are on their lunch break.  Plummeting back to reality, whilst celebrity documentary arguments are awkward to watch there is no hiding that we secretly love them and enjoy watching the tennis match of verbal abuse develop.  I hate to break it to all you KUWTK fans (Keeping Up With the Kardashians, ‘keep up!’ as they might wittily say) Stars such as Kim and Khloe Kardashian will have been made well aware of this by the producers, and will be instructed now and again to have an argument. 
As you may or may not have gathered, I could go on about celebrity documentaries until the cows come home, but I would never be able to finish.  My final thoughts on this lengthy topic, are that I am glad I am not in the shoes of say ‘The Hills’ stars or ‘The Kardashians,’ as my life is my life; I can wake up with my toilet brush hair without a camera in my face, I am not patronizingly celebrated for being able to cook food and if I argue with my family, I haven’t got strangers potentially laughing at the humour we bring to them.  Even celebrities though do want some privacy, as does Kourtney Kardashian when in KUWTK she controversially says ‘I don’t need people walking into my house whenever they please.’ Oh the irony.

1 comment:

  1. Sarah, I read your articles and was impressed most by this one. That may be because I totally agree with you, so my views may be influenced. Why anyone should care what most of these people did first last or next is totally beyond me, and that goes especdially for Kerry Katona in my book although the others are as bad. Keep up the good work.Apprecaited, and mature. Graham

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