GET OUTTA HERE, GARETH!
Rebecca Davis on why she’s so glad to see the back of Gareth Cliff
AUDIENCE members watching Idols apparently aren’t ones to closely follow news or Twitter. Judge Gareth Cliff was being drawn and quartered on social media all last Sunday, but at the live taping of the Idols finals on the same day, there was nothing but rapturous applause for Cliff. Maybe the audience was gazing down the barrel of a massive cannon pointed threateningly at them by producers. Or perhaps Cliff handed out alcohol all round?
Who can say. Cliff is a far better self-promoter than he is a writer, thinker or speaker, and he timed the spiked-drink revelation to perfection, to coincide with the publication of his latest book and his departure from Idols. I won’t be buying the book. I was too exhausted after reading the lengthy excerpt in last week’s Sunday Times, where Cliff made his decision to sue M-Net for unfair dismissal sound roughly equivalent to the Rivonia Trial. I wish I was as happy about anything as Gareth Cliff is about being Gareth Cliff.
M-Net is presumably cheering Cliff’s exit from the show, after being publicly humiliated by the socalled “shock jock”. (Side note: it says something about South Africa’s milquetoast broadcasting culture that Cliff could be viewed as a shock jock merely for recycling bog-standard conservative axioms.) Idols did a good job of pretending to be sad that he was leaving, though. In the penultimate episode, host Proverb made a lengthy joke of the idea that Cliff had to leave the show because it was taking longer and longer for the makeup team to keep him looking so young. Cliff laughed heartily, thinking of the ageing portrait of himself in his attic.
This was an historic season of Idols for other reasons than Cliff’s exit. Noma Khumalo became the first female winner in seven seasons. Khumalo could certainly belt out a power ballad, but users of social media saw in her victory a momentous political occasion. “Hillary Clinton may not have won,” one wrote on Twitter, “but Noma has done it for women by breaking the glass ceiling and winning Idols SA”. Feel better, for democracy is safe and gender equality officially achieved.
Idols seems to be going from strength to strength — in this latest season, 83 million votes were cast. That’s roughly four times the number of votes counted in South Africa’s last general elections, though it’s unfair to compare the two. For one thing, you don’t have to stand in a line to vote for Idols. For another, whoever wins Idols probably isn’t going to make daily life more difficult for you.
Idols producers say they don’t have a replacement for Gareth Cliff yet. I can’t think of anyone offhand, but I bet Marah Louw can.