It's OK! not to have the goss.

This morning I happened upon the editor of OK! magazine Claire Isaac doing a spot on 9am with David and Kim (channel 10).

Isaac was discussing the latest edition of the mag which features a one on one interview with Kyle Sandilands at home with his wife. She was saying what a lovely, kind-hearted person he is (vomit) and that he had just got back from the US.

She said that he spends a lot of time in the US because his wife Tamara has work over there ... umm ... according to The Daily Telegraph, Kyle himself is actually doing a TV show in the US with Brian McFadden - a simple Google search could have told her that - here's the story. Of course, that news broke after the magazine story was written so obviously Isaac can't be expected to know about it! Who researches a person they're going on national television to talk about? Ludicrous!

I would have thought The Daily Telegraph and OK! magazine would be good friends seeing as they both spin absolute crap.

Moral Panic Outrage

Hungry Beast did a great little piece on public outrage in this week's episode on ABC1. It outlined the process of moral panic amongst the general public.

I thought it was particularly interesting seeing all the fuss today about John Safran's new show Race Relations, set to start next week on ABC1. The Herald Sun had a poll asking if Safran's new show "breached boundaries of decency" - never mind that the show hasn't actually gone to air yet - the Australian public should be able to formulate a well-founded opinion based on ... well ... the Herald Sun article containing the poll, I assume.

On channel 10's The 7pm Project tonight they ran the story of the public's outrage over Race Relations. Dave Hughes pointed out that the Herald Sun poll earlier that day was 70% against the show and Safran's style of humour.

The poll at 8:11pm looked something like this;

So the cycle goes on and the moral panic continues tomorrow when those reacting to Dave Hughes' statement punch their fists proudly in the air and shout "Yeah! Me too!"

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Is it just me or is the moral panic becoming somewhat absurd? The fact that every little public event, performance, letter-opening or sneeze is being picked apart by Ma and Pa kettle is making it very difficult to make pleasant conversation at the water-cooler.

Example 1 - Today at work;

Me: "Hi, how are you?"
Pa Kettle: "Yeah good. Did you see that crap about hitting your kids with a wooden spoon? A bit of discipline never hurt anyone I say."
Me: (stupidly) "Could using a weapon to discipline them be a bit harsh though?"
Pa Kettle: "What?! A wooden spoon's not a weapon! Use whatever you need I say. Kids these days." (shakes head)

Example 2 - Later in the afternoon;

Ma kettle: "Can you believe that John Safran?"
Me: (stupidly) "What's going on?"
Ma kettle: "He's doing a blackface sketch on his new show!"
Me: "Hang on. But I thought the majority of Australia was for blackface humour?" (Could I have possibly misconstrued the 350 comments on The Daily Telegraph article last week?)
Ma kettle: "He's a disgrace that's what he is! They should take him off tv!"
Me: "But are you just saying that because you hate Jews?"
Ma kettle: "What?! he's Jewish too?"

Is all this outrage - directed at pretty much anything - making the issues that are actually worthy of discussion seem a bit, well, stupid? How can I be legitimately offended by the blackface skit if I don't really care whether dwarves dress up as jockeys and ride some crowd members at a racing carnival? If I have a penchant for skinny Jewish boys making fun of organised religion does that mean I should be all for hitting my child with random kitchen utensils?

... hang on, or should that be the other way around?

It seems like Australia is choosing sides and the battle lines aren't very well drawn out. Beware Australia; the water-cooler is no longer a safe place.

* One more thing; are all those people that joined the "I'm a fan of spooning" group on Facebook feeling awkward?

Cooking up a Storm in a Teacup

The Masterchef finale is the talk of the town today as the popular program attracted 3.7 million viewers last night in the official ratings results. I'm not sure that it was entirely a shock to anyone, after all, it's been one of the most popular shows on TV since about week 4 of the series. Not to mention the fact that the weekly evictions have made the front page of most papers on a regular basis.

Besides, look at its esteemed colleagues in the three-point-something million club; two Australian Idol finales and The Block finale. The only other programs that get a look in are sports events. Mind you, I'm not about to go on an elitist rant about how Australian viewers should be more discerning in their program choices ... because I too watched the Masterchef finale (whilst multi-tasking several other activities - after all, I can't devote a whole 2 hours to one program!)

I came in at the end, to what I thought was the video of the speeches at my cousin's 21st - it was very friendly wasn't it? Judge Gary Mehigan fighting back proud tears was almost too much to bear. Some critics have suggested that in these "times of financial instability" family viewing is on the up and up - Talkin' 'Bout Your Generation being a prime (time) example. And who better to personify the image of homeliness and comfort than the chubby home-cooking specialist Julie?

It is certainly a much better program than the other reality drawl - Dancing with the Stars and Australia's Got Talent; where the stars aren't even B grade anymore and the only talent is the production team that manage to edit this crap into an hour around all the replays, recaps and suspenseful commercial break outro banter.

Channel 10 execs will be hoping the 7pm Project (starting tonight at, you guessed it, 7pm) can ride the wave of Masterchef's success, with winner Julie being a guest on tonight's debut show. And of course Australian Idol will be back on our screens next month.

Meanwhile, it looks like the finale show next year will be live to air after all the trauma the pre-record has caused the media ... particularly the Daily Telegraph. Check out Andrew Dodd's post on Crikey here.

One more thing ...

Prediction: there's going to be a celebrity version of Masterchef taping from September - If I were a betting gal (which I certainly am not) I'd put money on Vince Colosimo (even though he's currently contracted to channel 9) and maybe Pete Hellier being involved.