Football is blind to reality TV justice of Ant and Dec
television
Sunday November 22 2009
On television, every day is judgement day. You've got The X Factor, and I'm A Celebrity, and The Apprentice, at the end of which someone is always judged, and found wanting. In an increasingly non-judgmental society, television may be the last place where the damned are cast out into eternal darkness.
And yet, even in these savage ceremonies, some form of justice can be discerned. So we accept with deep regret that the Breffmeister may be the most likeable guy on The Apprentice but that he was probably not going to win. We accept that Bill had to do the dirty job of firing him, at some stage.
And to help us with the grieving process, the Breffmeister presented himself on The Apprentice: You're Fired and came across even better than he did as a contestant -- we figured he's going to make it, at something. Maybe something that is even better than being Bill's apprentice, if that is possible.
There is a strange form of justice too, in Jedward's continuing success. As a wise man said, there are no performers on this show who are so good, they can't get beaten by a couple of lads from Lucan acting the tool.
So the truth, ultimately, is being served. And maybe an even deeper truth will emerge, in the fullness of time, when we realise that the reason the twins made such a name for themselves, is that they are good. (I'll just give you a moment there, to let that one sink in.)
Not good at singing, perhaps, but then loads of people are good at singing without being good at the other things you need to be good at, to be good, as such.
Louis Walsh cites the example of Ant and Dec, who were not as good as John and Edward when they started out, but who are now consummate funnymen and ruthless administrators of justice in the celebrity jungle.
And did all this judging, all this winning and losing, prepare us for our own banishment in Paris?
Not really.
When that referee damned us to an eternity of suffering, perhaps we felt something of the grief of Lucie Jones when she was handed over to the mob by Simon Cowell. Except we figure that she will eventually get over it.
No, there was no justice for us in Paris, not even the strange form of justice which prevails on reality TV. Because football gets even closer to the truth.
The truth is, there is no justice in this world, or at least, not much.
And all the best efforts of Simon Cowell or Bill Cullen or Ant and Dec to put some sort of order on their world, are just a fairytale.
In the real world, men do bad things and everyone sees them doing it, and they get away with it and they win.
All the time.
Our recent experiences with the banks should have made this abundantly clear. And as I listened to the usual fulminations on Prime Time, it struck me that we Irish should be uniquely able to appreciate that men do bad things, and everyone sees them doing it, and they get away with it, and they win -- before the banks, after all, we had the Republican movement, utterly indifferent to the destruction which they had wrought, and contemptuous of all who did not share their vision.
We've been there, baby!
And when you lose big, in football or in television or in life, all you can do is what Brian Kerr could be seen doing in RTE's Away With The Faroes. You just start again, wherever you can, in Kerr's case in the Faroe Islands. And if you get lucky for a change, someone will make a heartwarming documentary about you.
Or else you can migrate to that far, far better place inhabited by the Irish Times. It was an incredulous Sam Smyth on the Vincent Browne show who drew our attention to the headline on the Times front page, the front page which also contained the story about the latest AIB scandal, but which led with the following: "Denmark Concedes Successor To Kyoto Protocol Improbable."
Which puts everything in perspective, really.
- Decaln Lynch
Sunday Independent
