Evil Jeremy Kyle

I don’t generally watch programmes like Oprah, Trisha, Montel, Sally, and the like, but can’t avoid seeing them as I flit from channel to channel in the endless hope of finding something to stop on – so it should come as no surprise to learn that I’ve managed to wear out remotes and had to buy spares.

Most of them are generally harmless, little more than voyeur-TV with shedloads of truly sad people in the audience ogling similarly sad people who are strangely unconcerned about displaying their weird and deviant lives on national TV. Anyone normal would be trying to hide, not jumping up and down attracting attention. Even Springer’s show, which is amongst the most extreme, isn’t all that bad, which I say simply because there is no pretence of “usefulness” in its presentation, billed as sensationalist, it does what it says on the box, and provides entertainment, with Springer’s closing remark spot providing nothing more than a comment, not some sort of “Divine Wisdom”.

Coincidentally, the World at War and Secret Army are running at the moment, and both moving towards their respective conclusions, and seeing these together made me think of a disturbing correlation with The Jeremy Kyle Show. I haven seen Kyle’s offering for months, but watching certain scenes from these two programmes brought the image of Jeremy Kyle into my mind, and it was chilling to realise why. In both instances, the events concerned were those of the “good” citizens venting their spite at the enemy by “dealing” with collaborators.

The scenes were reminiscent of scenes on the The Jeremy Kyle Show, where Kyle spout his self-righteous drivel in a one-way tirade against participants in his programme, and generally leads a chorus of abuse from the audience against them. He is little more than a bully, and a particularly evil one at that, since he is in control of proceedings. I’m not suggesting any of his “guests” are above reproach, but piling abuse on them, and leading a baying mob against them is unlikely to improve whatever situation they may have been coerced onto his programme to deal with.

I doubt there were very many “real” collaborators around during the war, there may not really have been any at all. As far as I can see, so-called collaborators were little more than people trying to survive – the real collaborators were those like the profiteers, and were not around when the time of reckoning came. Collaborator was just a handy title for bullies to use, and for people with scores to settle to take advantage of, they could freely tell lies that could not be disproven (no one was listening anyway) and whip up emotions so that the targets of their revenge would be beaten up, abused, and even killed, since no-one had any time to listen to the “lying scumbag collaborators” who were now going to get what they deserved.

When watching Jeremy Kyle lead the audience in a hail of abuse against his guests, it’s easy to see that he would have been at the front of crowd, egging on the rest to hand out summary justice to the filthy collaborators.

Seriously, Kyle has a problem he should get help with  – just look at his face, and in particular his eyes, once he has started a tirade on some guest that he has decided to shame. If there were stones available, you wouldn’t want to be one of his guests if he took a dislike. A nasty piece of work, and definitely one to avoid.