Trinny and Susannah blamed for starting ‘rise of TV rudeness’
WITH their straight-talking advice on how to look fabulous, Trinny and Susannah styled themselves as fashion’s fairy godmothers.
But academics have identified What Not to Wear, the makeover show presented by Trinny Woodall and Susannah Constantine, as a programme that began the “rise of rudeness” in television, which reached its nadir with Jeremy Kyle. It features on a list that includes The Apprentice and Come Dine with Me, all helping British television to become “a sphere of anger, humiliation, dispute and upset”.
The research, by university academics Angela Smith and Michael Higgins, has been submitted to MPs conducting a reality television inquiry sparked by the death of a participant following filming for The Jeremy Kyle Show.
The authors suggested that Kyle’s aggressive treatment of participants was part of a wider shift. Their study, Belligerent Broadcasting, traced its roots back to the Sixties and “the gradual disappearance of deference in political interviewing”.
In the Nineties, The Jerry Springer Show set a template for the likes of Kyle as a confrontational host.
But the authors found that the “retreat of civility” in home-grown programmes spread with the arrival of What Not to Wear in 2001. Each week, Woodall and Constantine would make over a contributor, first pointing out how unflattering their clothes were.
They used one episode to support their thesis, in which Woodall told a woman that “you look like you’ve just crawled out of bed”. Constantine said of the woman’s coat: “If I’m going to be completely frank, which I will be, you look like a hunchback in that.”
Prof Smith, a professor of language and culture at the University of Sunderland, said the presenters were considered to be entertaining at the time but their approach amounted to bullying.
“It was the power they had to tell people what to wear. It was always legitimised as being ‘for your own good’.” Prof Smith said the programmes eventually morphed into other forms of confrontation. The report mentioned the aggression evident in Gordon Ramsay’s shows, including Kitchen Nightmares, and The Apprentice, where Lord Sugar conducts boardroom showdowns.
She also said Come Dine with Me, with its jokey voice-over, created “a sense of disharmony or conflict – we can see the same thing done on Love Island”.
And Jeremy Clarkson’s “banter” with fellow presenters on Top Gear exemplified “a certain form of masculine, laddish culture” that has been copied.
In their submissions to the digital, culture, media and sport select committee, the academics said: “We found there had been a rise in not only the frequency but also the range of programmes where conflict talk arises.”
They recommended that producers minimise the focus on conflict and take into account the mental health of participants. The committee delivers its findings later in the year.
Woodall told The Sunday Telegraph:
“I’m having lunch… … really, I don’t have a comment.”
Constantine was contacted for comment.
Gordon Ramsay ‘I’ve never, ever, ever, ever met someone I believe in as little as you!’