Dumbing Down

When the king of dumb, Eamonn Holmes, accuses GMTV of ‘dumbing down’ and of being ‘ too formulaic’, you know that our TV has reached a new low.

I caught five minutes of GMT this morning, after I’d had enough of watching the bizarre spectacle of Dermot Murnaghan and Natasha Kaplinsky saying alternate sentences in every intro they read to camera (you have to see this to believe it - it’s the breakfast news equivalent of matching anoraks). I was staggered to see the large moon faced ‘entertainment’ presenter prancing around the house where William Shakespeare was born saying things like, “Shakespeare wrote famous plays like The Final Countdown, Let Me Entertain You…” and so on.

Natasha Kaplinsky, loves to…
		…Finish Dermot off

I am not a Shakespeare snob (in truth, I haven’t read any since school), but this TV presenter was positively revelling in his ignorance. The viewer is invited to collude with him in his stupidity, to beat up the school swots who go around brazenly reading books, and, dare I say it knowing things other than which Z list Eastender actor is currently shagging who. Fear the person who knows things - Witch! Burn their books! Make them eat Microwave Chicken Tikka Sudan 1 Lasagne.

The presenter then read out the phone-in competition of the morning.
Question: Who was the star of Home Alone?

A - Macaulay Culkin
B - Leonardo D’Caprio
C - <insert third ludicrous answer here>

So, two things can be gleaned from this morning’s TV.
One: We, as a nation, appear to be rewarding stupid people - Either by giving them jobs on TV or by sending them to Spain for being able to text the letter A (yes the answer was Macaulay Culkin)
Two : The radio really is a much better bet in the mornings, unless Natasha and Dermot finally make the beast with two backs on the red sofa, before handing over to Moira for the headlines.

Written by exmonkey on February 28th, 2005 with no comments.
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