#bgt2016

So happy for Richard Jones to scoop BGT 2016! I knew he would win the moment I saw his audition (like I did for Diversity in the memorable SuBo season). His personal interaction with the judges was a great presentation that you don’t see too often and worked well on TV.

This SF was  a pretty good trick too though I started to wonder whether he was a pyromaniac. I’m still scratching my head as to how he used the match to write the word bottom on the page but I loved the light banter with the judges that made him come across as relateable and likeable.

We all know that on talent shows, many contestants have “sob stories” in order to evoke an emotional response (generally of pity/sympathy) from the audience. However, I think what makes something a sob story may need to be rethought.

I was watching Britain’s Got Talent on Saturday, and a young boy about 14 yrs old came on to do lyrical dancing (he was good, not amazing imo, but good). Of course, he had a sob story. The difference with this story, though, was the fact that it was about being bullied for dancing, by being called a girl and gay.

Now, my problem with the story was not with the fact that he was being bullied - that’s a horrible experience. It wasn’t EVEN the fact that he was upset about being called gay or female (because we’re generally taught that those things are lesser from a young age). My biggest problem was the fact that the judges felt sorry for him because of this, instead of pointing out that these things aren’t negative.

In fact, no one on the show told this boy that being female or gay were not a negative things.

Things like this on TV, are exactly what casually perpetuate the idea that being female or a member of the LGBT+ community is negative. I’m all for showing that masculinity is so much more than just football games and fighting, but do girls and gay people have to be put down in the process?

Instead of feeling sorry for someone when they’re called gay or a girl, we have to show people that it’s just as normal and positive to be those things as it is to be male or straight.