Will we look back on programmes like Naked Attraction and Love Island and think wtf?

[VeloVixen]

at the risk of sounding like Mary Whitehouse I think that now to be honest.

in the Russell Brand fall out I saw a clip yesterday of him and Alan Carr getting the female, single audience members of Alan Carr’s show to stand up while Russell walked round deciding which ones were “nice”. The theme been that Russell was picking who he was going to take back and shag after the show. That went out on channel 4 with everyone laughing and thinking it was ok.

Will we look back at current shows which objectify women and men, judge them on their looks, their penis size, their pubic hair, whether they are in a couple or not and think what the hell were we doing letting stuff like that be broadcast? Remember stuff like Kanga on Big Brother masturbating while drunk with a beer bottle in the garden. What on earth were the tv executives doing letting stuff like that happen to drunk, vulnerable youngsters? We had Jeremy Kyle exploiting vulnerable people and look what happened. But it continues to some extent.

Channel 4 has always been a bit grim late at night though.

Remember Jade Goody stripping naked and being filmed giving another housemate a hand job under the covers? She was very young, clearly no safeguarding went on there.

And remember Eurotrash? Was that Channel 4 or Channel 5? Was it a UK production or just broadcast in the UK? I know Antoine de Caunes presented it but I think it was a UK production.

Yes Eurotrash was on channel 4 and the word was on later. I watched it as a teen but now I think about it , it was pretty grim.

I watched the clips of RB's shows on the C4 programme the other night and thought, yeah, I'd pretty much given up watching whatever was on TV before that shite became normalised. It was somewhere early in the Gok Wan era when I thought, who the fuck are you in your stupid spex to be telling me what to wear?

I detest the whole demeaning nature of it all. People can volunteer to be demeaned, but that doesn't make it right or kind for the rest of us to stand around cheering them on.

Or to laugh at male comedians mocking women, a la Russell.

I just always wonder; who likes this stuff and why? I don't watch television very much but like dramas and documentaries.

Reality television seems exploitative to me in many cases. Like a Roman circus, it's all about the implicit humiliation of people.

@bombastix "Bread and Circuses" - isn't that the phrase.
The Hunger Games are coming people.....

Yeah. A lot of it is licensing bullying imo. Grim.

I used to love Eurotrash and the Word. Not sure my older self would be quite as keen.
I thought that the first series of Big Brother was brilliant TV.
I find Naked Attraction (in very small doses) an interesting watch. It's utterly ridiculous (how do they go to work the next day!) but the premise is quite intriguing - as is the married at first sight type show.
It's entertainment - but also a direct reflection of what the current culture consumes.
If it offends you - you're not the target audience.
Personally I find shows like 'i'm a celebrity ' with it's wanton cruelty to animals impossible to watch but lots of people love it.

It's all lowest common denominator stuff isn't it. Like watching a hanging or bear baiting or cock fighting or Barnum's Circus. There will always be an appetite for this stuff but the details will vary with fashion.

So many shows are really unpleasant to watch.

They are being produced by the porn generation so I'm not surprised.

Porn is the benchmark so they think they are being mild!!

Never watched a single episode of these shows. Even seen promotional material for it online makes me cringe. I just don't get the appeal.

I think it affects other media. I mean you get Love Island coverage in the Independent! That used to a serious newspaper but now it is trash. I know there has always been crap like to some extent but it was acknowledged to be crap and there was not a mainstream crossover. It seems to be very infantile

I already think WTF. I don't need to "look back". Rome is burning.

thinking WTF for quite a while about all mentioned shows plus Keith Lemon. We didn’t watch either of them in this house, their concepts are absolutely sickening. Some people might say that I’m boring , I don’t mind.
I do hope we all will think WTF about them very soon but I don’t hold my breath. It seems there are a lot of people out there who enjoy these shows.

I find the whole premise of these shows vile. But enough people watch them for it to be worth the production company’s while. 😞

Back in the 60s there was a drama called The Year of the Sex Olympics. It predicted all of this.

I wonder what Mumsnet of Shakespeare's time would have been like....
"AIBU that my friend wants to go to the latest play by that William bloke just because she wants to throw rotten tomatoes at the stage because apparently the play is terrible. I think we should at least give the play a chance plus it's a waste of tomatoes"
"AIBU that my husband wants to take the children to a public hanging? He says all the families go and it's a fun day out but I think it's a bit gross. But then again the children loved the Bear Baiting and beg to go again".....

@HardcoreLadyType

”I already think WTF about those shows.”

Me too.
But C4 has always seemed to pride itself on commissioning shows that would have Mary Whitehouse exploding in her grave. I’d hope that the RB scandal will have a sobering effect, but can’t help wondering for how long. However many of us always found them too utterly distasteful to watch, presumably they did bring the viewers and advertising ££££ in.

I think society will become more divided as people will fall into the "reality TV, it's all a laugh and I can make money on OF" camp or they will distance themselves from it all, with both sides getting defensive and feeling judged by the other.

This divide is what makes click bait and opinions pieces, so I think they will continue to exploit it.

I do think Ali G was different though, as the joke there was that celebs thought it was a real interview and then he asked totally inappropriate things. You weren't meant to laugh at the idea people wanked over the spice girls, you were meant to be shocked anyone would ask that. Now people just ask it.

I don't get this either.. Imagine if it was the other way round. Awful film to make in this day and age.
Naked attraction sends me cold
Society is trying to be more progressive but we can't get very far with these mixed messages. How is onlyfans okay when we're teaching young men to respect women and not objectify etc

Naked Attraction is just creepy, shameless and weird. No reflection needed. I've never watched Love Island. But as several contestants went on to commit suicide, it must be ruthless in selecting people for their reality tv value not their resilience. And that should be enough to have the show cancelled.

We viewers are "Tower Block Traceys", no bar is too low for us. Producers despise both their audience and the participants. Obviously.

One of the things that horrified me about NA is that the presenter is Sue Perkins’ partner. I can’t believe it sits well with her.

Cheap and nasty. With the proliferation of channels more content was needed. Cheap to produce, using everyday people at first.

I've managed to avoid it all. My kids watched an episode of BB once. Ten year old DS said ' It's boring , everyone just lies around in a sleeping bag all day like Christmas '

This made me a bit sad. So this is what Christmas looks like to a child after the excitement of the presents being unwrapped ?

I do that already!

They split before the show started I think.

And from my own childhood I give you Benny Hill; the stripper in wheeltappers and shunters (or something similar); It Ain’t Half Hot Mum…. There’s always an audience for exploitative shite it would seem.