Advertisement
It was a strange twist of events that New Zealand, who generally views itself as the wool-lined nice guy of global affairs, turned out the most sadistic contest panel judges. But perhaps it was just a machiavellian case of televisual karma. After all, we did invent the pop singer reality TV genre in 1999 with Popstars—you are welcome.Despite being the first show to show the inner workings of a manufactured pop band—and setting the mould for countless variations on the theme—the first and only season was fairly bloodless. The most pointed barb a judge managed was, "she's fairly short".Since Sunday the story has continued to dominate the news cycle by picking over the aftermath of the whole mess. Willy Moon and Natalia Kills were promptly fired, fled the country, and are now happily ensconced in the land of originality, Los Angeles. Joe appears to have recovered and be enjoying humanity's love of the underdog. In a few days he attracted the support of Lorde, Ed Sheeran, and Ellie Gould—not bad for a dude from Invercargill.But this was hardly the show's only taste of questionable choices this year. The producers had already drawn criticism for appearing to minimise the role one of the contestants had played in a 2004 homicide. Shae Brider spent six years in prison for his part in the stabbing death of a 16-year-old . While he was upfront about his conviction from the start, he coloured the incident as a "wrong place at the wrong time" scenario.
Advertisement