the roads are getting nearer

Friday, June 24, 2005

` Friday, June 24, 2005

I've always had an innate curiosity and somewhat bizarre respect for people who choose to parade themselves on national television for the most mundane of things. Take the extremely tall lady on a past episode of Monday's Top Fun, who could have been a Guinness Book of Records alumnus not for her larger-than-life profile, but for the sheer amount of hair on her legs. I almost gagged on my dinner when she appeared on TV. It didn't help that the somewhat voyeuristic cameraman held lingering shots of her hirstute "twin towers", and that the lady was decked out in nothing more than a mini-dress. Pardon me for the same-sex bashing, but if one did have plans to present themselves for public viewership, a fair amount of grooming should be observed before turning into a potential gogglebox eye-sore.

Of course, we are all guilty of acting the part of the ugly critic when we see ordinary people struggling to prove themselves in the limelight. Strangely enough, beauty pageants and talent quests still thrive and abound in our cynical TV world. As much as we secretly admire their bravado and wished the same courage would manifest in ourselves at times, it is still rather painful to watch people who seemed destined to work their faces behind the cameras. It is even more nerve-wrecking to see them in denial of their incapabilities. Sometimes, you wonder if such behaviour is attributable to misguided optimism, or simply sheer ignorance of reality.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but imagine if someone told you flat in your face, in a singing competition on national television, that you were too thin or too fat for the aethestically focused entertainment industry. Imagine yourself as a fresh-faced teen straight out of school looking for a big break, only to be crushed by the harsh words of a supposedly qualified judge, commenting not on one's vocal prowess, but on the physical inadequacies you wished no one would point out. I felt alot of injustice for the poor girl, who admittedly had some baby fat to shed. But the look on her face was that of a shrinking violet, when told that she should "try to lose more weight than the other contestants". I wished someone would have asked that judge if he'd seen a mirror recently. Sometimes you wonder why they put people like him on the judging panel, when constructive criticism doesn't seem to be his forte.

I believe that everyone has a hidden (some overly exposed) exhibitionistic desire to be seen or heard by others. It is possibly the mentality that things can always been done better their own way. I'm sure the judge secretly thought that given the chance, he'd look better or sing better than any of the contestants on the show. It might have been the case granny years ago, had he not been in the twillight years of his current non-existent career.

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