From Jedward to Dana: the best and worst of Eurovision 2011

It may be that there was no contest more appropriate for reality star twins John and Edward than Eurovision. The Irish duo, who became famous in the UK after enjoying inexplicable success on the TV singing competition X Factor, will be competing for Ireland in this year's Eurovision Song Contest next week. They are just one act in a year marked by astonishing comebacks, pleas to stop climate change and even – most intriguing of all – France's entry singing entirely in a language other than French!

Much like the Sanjaya phenomenon on American Idol in the US, the public support for 'Jedward', as they came to be dubbed by the British press (and they are now competing under that name in Eurovision), seemed to be driven by Simon Cowell's clear distaste for them. The identical twins are undoubtedly horrible dancers and singers, but their hammy gimmick act won the hearts of the British public. But can they win the hearts of Europe? The UK is most likely to vote for them, and there will be some in continental Europe already familiar with them from watching British X-Factor. The song is actually quite catchy, but in order to win they would need to majorly polish their dance moves and I'm not sure I see that happening. Still, they've got something. But their main gimmick is going to be seriously undercut by the fact that Slovakia's entry this year also features identical twins. Here's the video of the Jedward song which, for some reason, was shot at the Eiffel Tower in Paris (trying to woo those continental votes?)

British reality TV

It’s strange, who would have guessed that Celebrity Big Brother, which I became so curious about when I first arrived here, would spark a major international incident! The proportions of this have really gotten huge. Could the end result of all this be, finally, the death of trashy reality TV? I do so want to believe that, but my natural skepticism doubts it.

I’m not sure how much play this is getting in the states, so I’ll briefly recap for you. Big Brother is a huge phenomenon here, with a live TV feed and the inane details of the show plastered across the front pages of the tabloids every morning. This seasons Celebrity Big Brother invited on Jade Goody, a woman who became a “celebrity” (the term is used loosely here) through her appearance on a previous Big Brother. Basically, she became well-known for her outrageous stupidity.

Controversy erupted when Jade and two other contestants started picking on Shilpa Shetty, a Bollywood star from India. They said some things that were vaguely racist, such as saying Shilpa should “fuck off home” and saying Shilpa “wants to be white” because she bleaches her upper lip hair. Basically the things that were said were more stupid and ignorant than overtly racist. Well she did call Shilpa “Poppadom,” but I have no idea what that means.

Shilpa shenanigans

Well I would be remiss if I didn’t give you an update on the Big Brother situation. It’s big news here after all! Yesterday's big news (plastered on the front pages of all the papers and leading the news broadcasts) was that there has been a public outcry and allegations of racism against some of the Celebrity Big Brother housemates. Viewers are apparently complaining that three of the British housemates are engaged in “racist bullying” of Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty.

Now I don’t have a TV at the moment, but I watched some YouTube clips of the incidents in question and it’s clear no one is being overtly racist, they’re just being stupid, making dumb comments about India, etc. The thing is Shilpa comes off as a saint, and these other girls just look like nasty idiots (the group is led, by the way, by the very Jade Goody I was mentioning in an earlier post). Anyway everyone from Gordon Brown to the head of channel 4 has had some kind of comment on it, and there have been calls for channel 4 to intervene. It’s leading all the Indian newspapers as well apparently. It’s all pretty silly. Shilpa is stunningly attractive and wildly successful in India, so it’s natural that these D-list British celebrities surrounding her are going to be jealous. Still, it’s an interesting phenomenon, this public reaction. And it should be noted that although the show’s ratings were sagging before, they’ve now shot up, leading to even more allegations that channel 4 is “profiting off racism.”