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Yesterday, while waiting for the Parelvissers to start on één, my zapping pattern made me stumble upon

• Big Brother: some ‘grown-ups’ were fishing rubber ducks out of a pool with forced enthusiasm
• De Pfaffs: 2 ‘grown-up’ men couldn’t work out how to install a game console and resorted to drinking half a dozen beers out of a home tap, in glasses featuring the face of their father-in-law (Jean-Marie Pfaff, Belgium’s best example of ‘brains don’t matter’)

Ironically, the excellent ‘Parelvissers’ show is about the decay of a formerly successful TV production company that falls apart because they produce more and more shitty stuff. I wonder how many of the people in Endemol (Big Brother) or Eyeworks (de Pfaffs) have a déjà-vu feeling when watching the series. “A show that features old people reading their will on TV and explaining why cousin X doesn’t get anything, hey, we had that idea too!“.

Watching Big Brother for 5 minutes was bad enough, but the Pfaffs episode was really embarrassing. Two guys in their late twenties fruitlessly struggling with a game console and a huge flat screen, a pregnant daughter talking to her doctor about her stool inconsistency, a 50-year ex-goalie talking about the importance of friendship while wearing sponsored shirts, … there’s just that much a sensible person can take. This is Reality television when the genre has outstayed its welcome, when they’re just trying to milk a dead cow. Reality TV is dead. Let’s see what’s on the other channels …

I cannot say I felt nothing when I saw the latest Humo cover. It started with “Mmmmm … Roos Van Acker” (I’m a guy, what can I say, I’m not alone in this).

But then my rational side took over. I started worrying about the damage this must do to her personality. Admit: she has been on the coverpage of Humo a couple of dozen times in various states of undress (the most famous one where she only holds 2 coconuts as an improvised bra) and she has just be chosen for X-th time in Humo’s Pop Poll in the category ‘Who do you want to see naked?” (”Wie wilt u uit de kleren zien gaan“). Thousands of men screaming to see your breasts, that can’t be beneficial for a girl’s self-esteem. We should really stop, guys, before it’s too late. Chances are that in 5 to 10 years, there will be no crowds cheering for her to drop her top and we don’t want her to fall into a depression and stuff herself with chocolate.
Continue reading ‘Roos Van Acker’s brain’