'Reality' vs 'Celebrity' and Danni Minogue jumps on the bandwagon

By Sarah Morris on Feb 6, 10 01:01 PM in Gossip

If there's one thing that we just can't seem to get away from at the moment, it's got to be reality TV shows. Don't deny it. Whether you love them or hate them, you will find yourself watching one at some point over the next few weeks, even if it's by accident.

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Initially, I have to admit, I thought 'great!' here's a chance for the mere general public who haven't so far been lucky to find fame and fortune, to actually have a bash and try our luck.

Well, Big Brother ruined that for us all by finding the weirdest, loopyest and most undesirable members of the British public to 'represent' the rest of us 'normal', decent members of the British public, and then treat them like performing monkeys in a zoo... although if they were actually performing monkeys in a zoo, chances are animal rights activiists would have had channel 4's guts by now.

Regardless of that, more and more reality TV shows cropped up, some better than others, and alas we found ourselves awash with them.

OK.... so what's my point?

Eventually, reality TV became so 'popular' and apparently good for launching a TV career, or at the very least, minor celebrity status for a short amount of time whilst you reeled in a bit of extra cash through magazine 'tell all' deals, fame 'starved' celebrities soon cottoned on.

Unleash the surge of celebrity 'reality' TV programs... some were quite interesting at first - it's someone we all recognise, the shows make you think you actually 'know' the celebrity a little better, and of course it gives us all a (really quite bland) common topic of conversation to engage in.

But now, is it just me, or do we seem to have celebrity reality TV overload? Even the reality TV shows designed to pluck 'normal' working class citizens from obscurity and catapult them to the ultimate in fame, fortune, adoration, stylishess (Susan Boyle - see my previous post on 'SuBo Style') blah blah blah (X Factor, Britains Got Talent), have become all about the already-famous-but-want-even-more celebrities!

OK - I am getting to my point, bear with me...

It probably started with 'The Osbornes'. Now yes this was interesting and amusing. But then we had all the spin offs which became a little tedious and self indulgent on their part. Still, it wasn't so bad.

Fast forward a few years, and we have 'Katie and Peter', 'Katie and Peter: Stateside', 'Katie and Peter: The last Chapter', 'What Katie did next', 'Kerry Katona Crazy In Love', a whole show devoted to Cheryl Cole, rumours of Alex Reid doing his own show... and now Danni Minogue is rumoured to be doing a documentary style show following her newly announced pregnancy.

Seriously? Forgive me if I'm wrong, but what part of the word 'reality' is actually 'real' about any of these celebrities lives? Who 'really' has a life that even comes close to resembling anything of theirs? But then maybe that's why we should be interested.

Can I put something to you all though? Rather than 'reality', maybe we should dub these celebrity shows with a new set of terms. Here's a few suggestions for you, how about:

Celebrity self indulgence shows
Celebrity self glorifying shows
Let's make celebrities even richer than they already are shows
Celebrity ego inflating shows

Or how about just simply 'I'm a celebrity - look at ME'.

Come on guys, I mean, as fascinated as we all are about the lives they lead (because in a lot of cases, we could quite happily swap places and enjoy all the perks they seem to get), it's not 'real' - these guys aren't going to show you the real them, they're showing you what they want to show you in order to raise their own profile, bank balance and chances of getting first on the list for the latest designer must-have (jealous? Moi?)...

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