Jeremy Kyle is no loss, but leave ‘Love Island’ alone
Exploitative, voyeuristic, morally bankrupt. Now that Jeremy Kyle has had his comeuppance, I think we can all agree that the age of tawdry television is over.
I only tuned in very occasionally as I couldn’t stomach the sad parade of individuals craving 15 minutes of fame at the expense of their pride, reputation and dignity.
Oh, and the gruesome dentistry. Teeth missing. Teeth at impossible angles. Teeth like rows of burned-down houses.
You think I’m exaggerating? Back in 2016, the Daily Mirror ran a story headlined: “Jeremy Kyle viewers stunned at pretty guest who is ‘normal attractive girl with teeth’.”
A year previously, the show paid £10,000 for a female guest to have her, admittedly horrendous, teeth fixed as they were distracting from her “Stop harassing me just because I’m sleeping with your ex” segment.
The procedure was filmed, of
course, and aired on the show. All part of the Mephistophelian pact of the reality genre.
But it was the suspected suicide of a male guest a week after failing a lie-detector test on the programme, that prompted this week’s backlash.
No matter that Steve Dymond had volunteered to appear and could have been in no doubt as to the deliberately adversarial format of The
Jeremy Kyle Show, it was the producers and presenter who got the blame. And the axe.
Fine by me. More than fine.
Just as long as the
powers-that-be keep their highminded mitts off Love Island.
It is well known that two contestants from the ITV dating programme have subsequently taken their own lives, in separate incidents. Was it directly due to shortcomings in the aftershow care or were they already troubled individuals? I have no idea. I’m not at all embarrassed at avidly watching Love Island because it’s anthropologically fascinating. Some characters are more fragile than others, but the beautiful, narcissistic young people who appear on it in their swimwear do so at their own risk for their own reasons. Whatever the claims about trying to find The One, the real goals are fame and fortune in the form of personal appearances, advertising campaigns and endorsements. High stakes, indeed.
Is it prurient and patronising of me to tune in? I don’t think it is; the beach bodies are just a sideshow. I’m far more interested in their ultra-white veneers.