Racism and Mind Control in “Comic Relief does Fame Academy”
by Steve Wallis
Version 3, 20th February 2006
I watched most of the programmes in the “Comic Relief does Fame Academy” BBC TV series in the run-up to Red Nose Day, 2005 (a “telethon” which raises money to alleviate some of the problems of capitalism, mainly in Africa but also in the UK). Unlike “Children in Need”, which disabled activists have long campaigned against (sometimes getting their protests broadcast live on TV) demanding “Rights not Charity”, it does not raise money for disabled causes. [It was revealed on the front page of a national newspaper before the first “Children in Need” telethon that Terry Wogan demanded a huge fee to present it! Wogan’s only other appearances on TV nowadays are to present the Eurovision Song Contest, when he repeatedly talks about it being fixed when neighbouring countries vote for each other – even when they are countries that have big ethnic tensions (like Greece and Turkey) or those that have been recently at war with each other (like Serbia, or whatever is left of the former Yugoslavia is now called, and Bosnia)! In the past, panels of people in the music industry allocated votes to other countries, but now telephone voting is used everywhere in Europe. In many other countries, Eurovision is the musical highlight of the year, and their best artists submit songs, but it is generally treated as joke in the UK due to Wogan’s commentating. Wogan is not being stupid – he is on the side of big business (I don’t know whether he is in a conspiratorial organisation such as MI5, or a more secretive one so that whistleblowers like David Shayler and Richard Tomlinson cannot spill the beans, or simply cooperating with such people).] Before talking about the “Comic Relief” version of “Fame Academy”, I’d like to talk about that programme generally and how it compares to other singing TV talent shows.
I had not watched many “Fame Academy” programmes before, but I did catch the final two programmes in the first series (towards the end of 2002). All three finalists, David Sneddon, Sinéad Quinn and Lemar, were very good. Recent ITV programmes have generally not uncovered artists with similar levels of talent, in my opinion, despite a large number of series. The notable exceptions to this point are Darius from “Pop Idol”, Jamelia, Suzanne Shaw and Myleene Klass from “Pop Stars: the Rivals”, and the operatic band G4 from ITV’s most recent series “X-Factor” – which is better than ITV’s earlier series because they allow bands to audition together and have a category for older people whereas the previous shows were ageist by preventing older people from taking part (in addition to boys and girls who are still discriminated against).
The ITV series “Pop Stars” was the first to show auditions from budding pop stars, but the five winners who were placed in the band HearSay, was entirely chosen by a panel of judges. They were probably not as talented as the people who came sixth to tenth, because they formed Liberty X, which has had modest success and is still going (although I don’t think much of their “Thinking It Over” album) whereas HearSay has disbanded and I’ve heard nothing more from any of its ex-members. The highlight from “Pop Stars” was Darius’ performance of Britney Spears’ song “Hit Me Baby One More Time” – although Darius has subsequently said that he regretted that audition, and I am not keen on that song because it appears to promote domestic violence. [My former revolutionary socialist organisation, the Militant Tendency (which I joined during the 18-million strong mass non-payment campaign which it led that subsequently defeated the poll tax and brought down Margaret Thatcher), later to become Militant Labour and now the Socialist Party, formed the Free Sara Thornton Campaign (leading to the release of a woman who was convicted of murder and jailed for life for killing her violent partner), later to become the Campaign Against Domestic Violence (CADV), which also campaigned for more women’s refuges. However, the leadership of Women’s Aid, which runs many refuges and had cooperated with the Socialist Party in CADV, later launched a vicious attack on that party (undoubtedly because they are right-wing feminists who see men rather than capitalism as the problem). I had gone to a large meeting in Manchester Town Hall, but Women’s Aid subsequently insisted on women’s only meetings, which was a problem with CADV because some men suffer domestic violence too, and it is important for women who have experienced it to encounter good men in order to fully recover from their ordeal. In contrast to the attitude of the leaders of Women’s Aid, we saw capitalist society, and the “nuclear family” which capitalist politicians promote so that the husband can control the wife and together control the children so that big business remains in control (although advances in women’s rights, which I fully support, are undermining that form of control to a large extent nowadays in this country).] Whereas virtually everybody else featured in “Pop Stars” attempted to sing a song in the same style as the original artist, Darius showed far more originality, and was one of the very few men brave enough to sing a song originally performed by a woman.
“Pop Stars: the Rivals” was better than the original “Pop Stars” because TV audiences were allowed to whittle down the best singers, as selected by the judges, to the final five (for men and women separately). The judges believed that Jamelia who is black was the best of the female singers, but she came sixth probably due to the “experts” who advised her what song to pick for the final. I was not impressed by her performance in the final, probably because I tend to prefer songs with a mixture of influences from different genres since they usually show more originality. Black musicians and singers have been responsible for most genres of music (in particular rock and roll, soul, jazz, R&B, reggae and rap) but often white singers, musicians and songwriters take influences from the different genres to produce better songs. I thought the best singer in “Pop Stars: the Rivals” was Suzanne Shaw. Phone polls are very easy to manipulate, because there is no documentary evidence about who voted for whom. A London radio station received a lot of calls from people in that area (where Jamelia comes from) who said that they had voted for her, but heard a voice saying that they had voted for Suzanne Shaw – who I thought the best singer in that series and in the final, and deserved to come first but only reputedly came fifth. Whereas Jamelia was probably defrauded as well, I think that whoever fixed the polling at ITV used the opportunity to undermine a great white singer as well. As a result of Jamelia getting voted off, the resulting band Girls Aloud is all white. They were much better than their male rivals, who quickly disappeared without a trace, had a big Number One hit with “Songs of the Underground” and are still going fairly strong.
[My favourite band of all time is Katrina and the Waves, who have taken influences from a large number of different genres. They are white except for Vince de la Cruz who I think has Mexican ancestry (due to his name and because two of their early songs are about Mexico). They are best known for the love song “Walking on Sunshine” and “Love Shine A Light” (which is actually an anti-war song, talking about loving people around the world, hence it winning Eurovision by the largest amount ever and reaching Number 2 in the British pop charts – those who think they are uncool should buy the “Love Shine A Light” single and listen to the “Xenomania club mix”, which is one of the best dance tracks I have ever heard; undoubtedly the main reason why the single kept climbing in the charts at a time when that was virtually unheard of, but I recently read that the other B-side “Spiderman” is Katrina’s favourite of all their songs). Katrina and the Waves’ best and very political album “Roses”, which I bought in Canada but is available elsewhere as “Turnaround”, is very hard to get hold of. The song “23rd Psalm” on that album is an even better anti-war song. I am planning to set up a revolutionary socialist band called Galaxia after the general election, and want the three Waves to be in the band. For more about Galaxia, visit the Galaxia website at www.galaxiamusic.org.]
There are also the problems of racism and political bias in the music industry, since the people who choose which songs to promote have enormous power over which songs become hits – whether it is the bureaucrats who limit what Radio 1 DJs are allowed to play by selecting songs to go on the playlist, or those who select which songs to promote on “CD:UK” or “Top of the Pops” before they reach the charts.
ITV1 is the main big business channel, due to it being the main channel on which adverts are shown, so it tends to be more biased in favour of big business. This entails rarely putting on left-wing political programmes (the main exceptions being “Spitting Image”, although that programme became less political in its later years, and documentaries by the great socialist journalist John Pilger) and tending to promote music with lyrics that are very difficult to hear, so that listeners cannot tell what messages the songs are promoting. “CD:UK” is particularly guilty of this, and is a major reason why the pop charts have been so bad in recent years (although they have got a bit better more recently due to shifts to the left in society – 2004 albums by Green Day: “American Idiot” and Eminem: “Encore” are particularly good and political, and they have done well in the album charts as well as launching big hit singles).
Darius was by far the greatest talent to come out of all the ITV programmes, because he has great song-writing skills as well as a wonderful voice with great versatility. His first album was very good, but his second album was even better, particularly the hit single “Live Twice” in which he combines his husky low voice with a very high pitch at times. He came third to Will Young and Gareth Gates in “Pop Idol”. Will and Gareth have generally performed copies of old hits that differed very little from the original songs, but to the newer generations who hadn’t heard the originals, they undoubtedly sounded very good. However, Will’s song “Leave Right Now” is far better, but (although I don’t think it had been released before) he didn’t write it. He did do some songwriting on the same album, but I was not inspired by any of those songs.
The problems with telephone polls, apart from the ease of fiddling the figures, are that they tend to lead to lowest common denominator choices and that they are partly beauty contests. Apart from people feeling sorry for Steve Brookstein, the “X-Factor” winner who defeated G4, it was undoubtedly his sex appeal that won him that contest. His rendition of “Against All Odds” was not particularly good and his album flopped.
The BBC has been criticised lately for its copy-cat shows, and its bosses have promised to produce more original material, but “Fame Academy” is much better than the shows that is supposedly ripping off and it would be a massive shame if it was ditched. This is because the tendency for lowest common denominator choices is lessened by the judges and then the students whittling down the bottom three to a single “student” to vote off, and because the students have to write their own songs as well as learn to perform cover versions of songs written by other people (but the latter was not a factor in the “Comic Relief” version due to students being voted off daily rather than weekly). Although the first singles of the contestants from some of the ITV shows have been new songs, they were not written by the artists themselves – apart from Darius’ great debut “Colourblind”. [I think that song has anti-racist connotations, about people not caring what colour the skin of the person they love is – even if artists are not aware of it, and their songs are apparently about love, their subconscious insert messages in songs according to whether they want to help or hinder the struggle for socialism.]
On the first series of “Fame Academy”, David Sneddon was probably the best songwriter. Certainly, his song “Stop Living the Lie” (which went to Number One shortly after Christmas) was brilliant. He is also a very good piano player. [One of the “Pop Stars: the Rivals” winners, Myleene Klass, was even better at the piano and later left Girls Aloud to take up a classical career, but she was not encouraged to practice the piano or allowed to sing while playing it during the ITV series.] However, his singing ability was not as good as Sinéad Quinn, who came second, or Lemar, who came third. David’s album “Seven Years – Ten Weeks” is unremarkable apart from “Stop Living the Lie”, whereas Sinéad’s first album has had great reviews on Amazon (I ordered it but I failed to receive it) and Lemar has done some brilliant songs since, including a hint of politics. Lemar being black and growing up in Northern Ireland has obviously had a big effect on his political outlook, leading him to want to use his fame to help change the world.
Just as Jamelia received bad advice for the final, so did Lemar. In the penultimate programme, he sang a great version of Sinéad O’Connor’s “Nothing Compares 2 U”. He dedicated that song to his girlfriend, so obviously it was the one he liked the most – but the one he chose for the final (when asked to sing again his favourite from the series) was a much less inspiring number (probably stuck in the R&B genre for which he is best known), which is why he was beaten by David Sneddon and Sinéad Quinn. Many of Lemar’s singles have been similarly uninspired, but I have liked some of the others (including “What about Love?” from his first album “Dedicated”).
I tried to vote for Sinéad in the telephone poll, and twice heard a voice saying that voting had closed even though it hadn’t. I suspected at the time that the BBC poll was rigged as well, and since she only lost narrowly to David, a small number of other people defrauded like myself could have made the difference. However, I now think that it was conspirators on the side of the working class who had infiltrated the BBC polling organisation or telecommunications system encouraging me to publicise possible racism and sexism on “Pop Stars: the Rivals” and “Fame Academy”, which I did do via a message I sent on the internet.
Men generally do much better in reality TV shows (including completely different ones like “Big Brother”) than women, but that seems to be due to there being a greater female than male audience for such shows, and people voting more according to who they are attracted to than who performs better. David repeatedly won weekly telephone polls for best original song during that series, which may have been more of a reflection of the demography of the TV audience than his ability (but I’ll reserve judgement until I receive Sinéad’s album and find out to what degree the songs were written by her). Therefore, I think I was wrong about David winning due to sexism.
Anyway, after the introduction that went on rather longer than I intended when I started writing this message, I’ll finally talk about the “Comic Relief” version of “Fame Academy”!
I only realised something strange had been going on after “Top of the Pops” presenter Reggie Yates had been expelled from the house in the penultimate programme. When the credits rolled, he was hugging the other students who were stood in two rows. He had hugged everybody stood in one of those rows until he came to “Blue Peter” presenter Konnie Huq. Then, he completely ignored Konnie and went across to hug comic Adrian Edmondson in the other row! Any straight or bisexual man with any taste (or gay man who had any shred of decency) would have hugged Konnie, because she is the sexiest woman who currently appears on TV! [Indeed, she is the sexiest such woman ever, with the possible exception of Martine McCutcheon, who was Tiffany in EastEnders and subsequently went on to have a singing career singing pop songs and songs from musicals including performing in “My Fair Lady” on the stage, and then went back to acting in the film “Love, Actually” – for Martine’s significance in the struggle for socialism, visit my page http://www.socialiststeve.me.uk/martine.htm.]
I think that Reggie was partly motivated by racism towards Asian Konnie, despite the fact that he is black. Racism between black and Asian young people was revealed to have reached an extreme level in some areas of Britain in a fairly recent TV documentary presented by the black anti-racist campaigner Darcus Howe (who was accompanied by an Asian so that Asian youths were willing to speak to him). I have encountered it in both directions in Manchester, as I reveal in my page on “Racism & Fascism” (at http://www.socialiststeve.me.uk/racism-fascism.htm). Several years ago, fascists (in the British National Party or National Front) persuaded some black people from Moss Side to threaten Asian people on the Anson Estate, and we (in my socialist organisation) defended one threatened Asian family by mounting a 24-hour guard at their home. On Christmas Eve last year, a black friend of mine who is still at school was scared about going to Rusholme late at night, so he asked if I could accompany him. Rusholme is an area of Manchester with a very high Asian population (and the place with the greatest concentration of Indian, Pakistani and Kashmiri curry houses anywhere in the world – living together in harmony despite the war between India and Pakistan over Kashmir and the struggle for Kashmiri independence) and is a great place for Asians and white people to go to. I took the opportunity of carrying a “Show Racism the Red Card” placard (against racism in football) that I had in my flat when I went with my friend, and even sung a bit of Labi Siffre’s song “Something Inside So Strong” (about the fight for freedom in South Africa) – we received quite a lot of beeps from cars showing their support!
The extraordinary thing about Reggie was that he was such a terrible singer that he was repeatedly in the bottom two, having received a low number of votes from the TV audience and failing to be saved by the judges, but kept on being saved by other students – I think he was kept in by them on four occasions and survived a two-all tie by the audience vote on another occasion. Reggie had a certain amount of sex appeal, which Adrian commented on when he voted for Reggie on the basis that his teenage daughters were in love with him, but his singing was so terrible that the TV audience much preferred Adrian (who was very funny despite not having much singing ability either) to him. When the students’ votes came from people who had been stuck in the house with him, he was saved but finally (on the penultimate programme) all the students returned and he was voted off by eight votes to four (keeping Adrian in the competition).
As well as manipulating his fellow students to vote for him, I believe that Reggie undermined the self-confidence of some of them. The point was repeatedly made in the series how important self-confidence was for coming up with a good performance, and I not only think that Reggie undermined Konnie’s, but also that of Dawn Steele from BBC drama “Monarch of the Glen”.
Dawn was the best singer in the opening programme (not just in my opinion but that of the judges too). On one occasion in the house, one of the men commented that four women were the best singers out of all those in the series, and Dawn was one of them, but she mentioned that she lost her confidence when she came in the bottom three fairly early on, and went out in the next programme.
However, I think that Reggie’s main target was Konnie, as demonstrated by his behaviour when he went out (which I thought could be because of a role she could have played in the world socialist revolution if she had accepted my invitation to join my band Galaxia, as well as the issue of racism). Konnie was very good towards the start of the series, and the thirty minutes of help per song that she received from the vocal coaches (like the other students) helped her to improve – until the undermining of her self-confidence from Reggie (as well as the two regular male judges who were more interested in creating names for themselves than being honest) took their toll.
So how did Reggie undermine other students’ self-confidence and manipulate them into voting for him? Well, it is due to mind control – some people have the ability to read the conscious thoughts of others and push them into doing things that they would be less likely to do otherwise; I have come across such people on a few occasions in my life. Isaac Asimov wrote about such people being gathered together in a conspiratorial organisation called the Second Foundation in his famous and very influential Foundation series, to ensure that the plan for a galactic revolution was adhered to, as I talk about in my page on Isaac Asimov (see http://www.socialiststeve.me.uk/isaac-asimov.htm). I have also set up a discussion group, at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/second-foundation, relating Isaac Asimov’s literature to the issue of mind control generally.
I have recently set up the following discussion groups, to which I am sending this document (as well as distributing it to many other places and putting it on my socialist website):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/comic-relief
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/fame-academy
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/konnie-huq-fans
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/oxfam
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/fair-trade-hot-chocolate