We are in the midst of the season 16 semi-finals and I have lost count of how many times I’ve wept. I like to think it’s because I’m highly empathetic, and I could find articles that concur, but Greg would probably say it’s because I’m emotionally unstable. The breadth of human emotion I experience throughout an episode is vast. The children find it very curious to see tears streaming down my face when golden confetti rains down on ecstatic competitors. They’re yet to experience tears of joy themselves and while they haven’t yet told me that I’m lame and embarrassing, I’m sure that’s coming.
I know we could pick holes in what BGT does - there’s a case for the exploitation of contestants’ trauma in order to create compelling stories of overcoming adversity but, on balance, I think the good outweighs the bad. I feel good about my children cheering on Musa, a dancer and amputee, or Travis, a brilliant singer recovering from a mental health crisis, or Unity, a performance group promoting acceptance for trans and disabled people or anyone who is different. Watching BGT brings together our family and maybe even the world?
The fact that a show as mainstream as this one delivers heaped spoonfuls of inclusive messaging along with raw expressions of human emotion and remains wildly popular, restores my faith in us - all of us.
HE SAW
It’s hard to say what it is that makes BGT so successful. I know this because I asked Zanna to interview our children about it using her phone camera and to then send me the footage. Our 10-year-old said, “I just like it cause it’s cool and it’s fun to watch.” Our 8-year-old said, “I think it’s fun and I like how it’s a competition.” Our 6-year-old lay on the couch not looking at the camera and yelled at Zanna, “I told you I’m not doing it!” To be fair, he’s had a lot of rage issues lately.
The biggest surprise of the interviews came when our 10-year-old said she didn’t like Simon Cowell. When asked why not, she replied: “Because he’s mean.” This shocked me, because, in a relative sense at least, he was hardly recognisable as the same meanie who became an international star by crushing the dreams of hundreds of American kids who thought they could one day become famous singers.
The apparent change in Cowell is the thing I’ve liked the most about BGT. In the years since I watched him ruin the emotional and mental health of all those American teenagers in the first season of American Idol, he has seemingly become a different person. On BGT, he dishes out standing ovations left, right and centre, tells countless contestants how amazing they are and barely makes a negative comment. On the rare occasions he does, he couches it in positive terms so wishy-washy you can almost see his younger self sneering at them. So while Tallulah thinks he’s mean, to those who have watched his career, he resembles nothing so much as a teddy bear that’s had a lot of plastic surgery.
Cowell’s famously prickly nature, it seems, has been transformed by the overwhelmingly good vibes of the show, the mysterious essence of which was so poorly articulated by my children, but which I suspect has a lot to do with the number of adorable kids performing for him.
Cowell has completed his redemptive narrative arc: he has gone from villain to hero and, in doing so, has brought hope to all of us who are forced to live with people who are less than nice to them. My dream is that our 6-year-old’s narrative arc follows a similar trajectory, but much, much faster.
Britain’s Got Talent is streaming now on TVNZ+
