Above: photo of television screen taken with mobile phone (so please excuse the quality).
Kim Blacha is very passionate about low entry mediums of communication. Her latest enthusiasm is Bedroom TV, a channel where ordinary teenagers (mostly) carry out miming-karaoke performances filmed in various domestic locations - bedrooms, living rooms, even beside a wheelie bin. This is supposedly the latest in the democratisation of the broadcast media.
It put me in mind of the section in EM Forster’s A Passage To India where a well-meaning Anglican clergyman is assailed with questions by Hindus. Looking for common ground the clergyman assented that all men have immortal souls. “And animals too?” ask the Hindus. Yes, the clergyman could stretch a point and accept animals might have souls. “And insects and worms?” This was on shakier ground, but the clergyman goes along with the immortal souls of the arachnids and the creepy crawlies to avoid giving any offence. “And stones and mud?” Here the clergyman is forced to draw a line. Stones and mud could not be admitted to the eternal company of Heaven.
I feel we have reached just such a point with Bedroom TV. How much further can dumbing down go? Or is there still a long way yet to travel?
PS on the theme of broadcast excellence, this morning’s In Our Time was incredibly well done (even though I had to switch it off whenever someone came near my desk so my understanding was a bit disjointed).
More on bedroom tv: http://www.bedroom.tv/ and also http://www.thesun.co.uk/discussions/posts/list/Anyone_watched_Bedroom_TV-44478.page
More on Passage To India: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Passage_to_India
More on In Our Time: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/inourtime/
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