Wednesday 26 May 2010

Mamma Mia/Jeremy Kyle

Last Christmas, 372,000 children received a DVD of the Mamma Mia. In fact, prepare for red faces all round as it is in fact the biggest selling DVD of all time in the UK, to date counting sales of 6 million. Essentially the story of a young woman searching for her father from a choice of a possible three, glossy tans and gleaming white teeth appear to have masked the moral core of the film. If the blonde starlet was a pasty faced, acne ridden, breezer guzzling pikey, would we still sing and dance along as she attempts to discover the true identity of her biological father, after her mother slept with three men, sans contraception? Would we allow our youngest generation to idolize such a pursuit? The truth is, the pretty girl from the idyllic Greek island with the winding vines, clear waters and golden sands is a façade; Mamma Mia is a bronzed, glorified replica of Jeremy Kyle.

There is a sick sense of schadenfreude when we see what a mess the people on this daytime talk show have made of their lives. The ‘my-violent-alocholic-boyfriend-slept-with-my-sister-and-now-she’s-pregnant’ car crash TV upon which we feast is the backbone of Mamma Mia’s concept. Yet this is something we don’t seem to realize. When one young teenager and her guilt-stricken mother sit waiting for the results of the DNA test which will determine the identity of her biological father, we judge. We sit with our condescending eyes and rest gladly that our lives are NOTHING like theirs. Relief that, to the best of our knowledge, our children are at school and not downing WKD blue behind Pound-Stretcher. However millions of parents condone the promiscuity of a mother when she’s having fun in the sun and is being portrayed by Meryl Streep and pursued by Pierce Brosnan.

Does it not say something about the blind obedience of our society; the aesthetic values that we place above those of morality? We have become ‘Hollywoodised’ by the media and our judgments are not based on equality and common sense, but on visual appeal. It’s all singing and dancing until we wake up to our hypocrisy.

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