With the blood of Charlie Brooker coursing through my veins, today I am intent on turning into Mr Pop Culture Basher. My target: BBC One's The Apprentice, in particular last night's episode that in some ways was the most revealing show to date. Let me expand....
For those of you foolish not to watch, The Apprentice is the BBC's take on the American vehicle, which saw Donald Trump essentially taking the chance to star in a reality show and show of his millions and millions and probably billions and billions of dollars (cue lots of shots of him looking smug in terribly decorated yet extorionately expensive Trump Tower interiors). Our protagonist guides 16 or so "candidates" through a hugely ridiculous interview, each episode seeing the hapless and deluded contenstants embarking on some fiendish "task" in teams, usual revolving around who can sell the most pizza / coffee / crappy kids toys, and essentially making utter fools of themselves in order to seem the most ruthless and "efficient", thus winning the chance to become Trumps Apprentice and spend a year in a high class job selling worthless tat to toothless simpletons (ie the general public). At the end of each episode sees one blubbering contestant, the one who has f***ed up the most, on the recieving end of every TV directors aural wet dream, the show's big catchphrase, "You're Fired!" (plus a big pointy finger from Trump). Adam Curtis this is not.
In the UK, we see Alan Sugar take the baton, the Loveable Cockney Nutjob with a thirst for redundant computer systems (just what the f*** has Amstrad actually done for the past 20 years?) and mid-1990's football team chairmanism. He clearly has lots of money, as the program's intro helpful informs us, in which the squeezy-faced Sugar enjoys lounging on a huge yacht, private plane, sipping the blood of virgins in his golden-turretted castle, and so on and so on.
The current BBC series is the show's third, so us avid viewers are rather well adjusted to the shows speedy editing (which, as every reality show will testify, cleverly makes things seem funnier / angrier than in reality) and Alan Sugarism's (choice quote: "you seem to have gone from anchor to wanker"). And it IS a great show - Whilst it's inadvertently the best comedy show on TV (although it seems clear this yearthat the BBC have come to realise this, hence the increase in "reality show" style editing in order to), it also contains a great many lessons for us to learn about the nature of business and those that partake in it - namely, they are all money-suckly, pride-destroying, pathetic empty baffoons.
Nothing new, I hear you say, but things took a somewhat disappointing turn in last nights episode. To summarise, the contestants had to make and sell some crappy sweets, loaded with sugar and ill intent, to kids in a zoo, and as ever one team lost, the other won. Getting the pointy Sugar finger this week was Quantum Physicist Sophie Kain, essentially a very likeable, self-proclaimed "girl geek", with a bizarre lack of neck. She had protested that she felt demened by flogging these hideous sweets to kids at a ludicrious price, which, as most would agree, is an fair point - especially considering the reckless abandon of the other contestants, pride shitting out of theirs ears as they get on all fours and beg and hound people until they give up their hard earned money just to get these terrifying proto-individuals off their backs.
Of course, Sugar loves this, a complete disregard for morals, hence Sophie in the firing line. What bugged me was the way the show was nodding along with him, "yes, indeed there is no space for morals in this CUT THROAT BUSINESS WORLD, WHERE MONEY IS KING!". Sugar proceeded to call Kain "naive" due to her protests, again another brick bashed off the wall of human dignity.
Also, let me say this again - Sophie Kain is a Quantum Physicist. What on Bob Marley's name was she doing on this show? Logically, if Sugar wanted 16 of the best young business minds and bodies, he would have objected to the BBC accepting her into the final 16. This is TV thought, whereby ludicrious situations are passed off as utterly normal and dignity and beliefs are laughed at and wrung like a damp cloth. She was clearly a fall girl - they needed someone to tick the box of "different to other contestants in the fact shes brainy, moral and generally quite likeable, but ultimately will be kicked off by week 4 as shes not a twat enough". Sophie's tell-tale scene appeared in week 3, which saw the girls team discuss resorting to prostitution in order to turn water into wine (or, £200 into more than £200)- amazingly, they were all completely oblivious to this. Our "brainy" doctor made a polite comment that it was rather obscene, and had to defend herself by claiming she was a "feminist" (ie not a tarty moose that would suck Sugar dry at the drop of a £2 coin), to our other female contestants UTTER disguist: "feminist??!"
And so, another victory for the status-quo, and those vapid, empty-headed, business buffoons. But of course, its all great entertainment.
