The Column

Substandard Klass

Johnny Vaughan
& Kelly Brook

Fans of early morning television may well recall Kelly Brook’s brief, and farcical, role as presenter of The Big Breakfast, when she stumbled her way through the autocue without a hint of charisma, and the script-writers were called upon to ‘keep difficult words to a minimum’ so as not to expose her poor reading ability. This should have been a valuable lesson to television executives everywhere about the dangers of recruiting presenters based purely on aesthetics, however it seems that the BBC, traditionally the sensible aunt of television, has decided to ignore the lessons of history and employ Myleene Klass to present The One Show, its weekday early-evening current affairs program.

I must admit to only having seen the program on two occasions; the first was an unfortunate mistake, and the second was to clarify that it truly was as ludicrous as my memory suggested. Myleene Klass functions as the televisual equivalent of an air hostess, nodding and smiling to the static rhythm of proceedings without contributing anything of significance, or suggesting the remotest sense of sincerity on the odd occasions that she does speak. Even Sooty had more rapport with his audience, and he was a mute puppet who communicated by tapping a magician’s wand on a worktop.

Sooty

Were the show to be broadcast on a more experimental channel, one might assume the whole thing to simply be an exercise in provocative bad taste. What is all the more surprising is that this is one of the most-watched shows on the BBC; BARB (Broadcasters' Audience Research Board) estimates over 3 million viewers per day according to their most recent figures (w/e 05/08/2007). It all comes down to personal taste I suppose.

There has been a spate of incidents recently regarding what constitutes bad taste, particularly regarding t-shirt slogans. Airlines, governments and police forces have been banning/fining people if they are deemed to be wearing a bad-taste t-shirt: a forklift driver in Peterborough was recently reprimanded by the police for wearing a t-shirt saying ‘Don’t piss me off! I am running out of places to hide the bodies’; a passenger at Birmingham Airport was forced to remove a t-shirt depicting a hand-gun and the words ‘Green Piece’; market traders in Leicester were last year banned from selling shirts labelled ‘2 World Wars and 1 World Cup’ in spite of immense local demand; and Qantas airlines recently barred a passenger for wearing a t-shirt depicting George W. Bush above the slogan ’World’s Number One Terrorist’.

Offensive T-shirt

The t-shirt slogan is one of the most underrated forms of contemporary communication. It is possible for random strangers to learn a great deal about one another simply by reading what is (and isn’t) written on the front of their t-shirts. As a communicating surface, the t-shirt can theoretically bear any message or image the wearer pleases, and can often function as an ice breaker when two people meet. The t-shirt industry is fabulously creative and diverse at times, blending life and art to produce some truly iconic work. It even has the ability to be self-referential e.g. ‘I went shopping for new clothes and all I got was this lousy t-shirt’.

It is amazing how important owning a certain t-shirt can be to some people. LA Galaxy sold 250,000 replica Beckham shirts before they were officially unveiled (source: Reuters), despite the fact that most people who bought them will never so much as check the results when the team actually plays. Loyal football fans spend millions of pounds every summer on their team’s latest shirt; often little more than a subtle variation of the previous season’s offering, and most likely knocked up in a Cambodian sweatshop for mere pence by children at knife point.

Beckham’s Shirt

French Connection was allowed to register FCUK as a trademark, even though it is mostly used in a sexually provocative context on their clothing, which can be embarrassing and offensive to those of a sensitive disposition. There is also the matter of context with regard to the offensiveness of a given slogan; for example I recall once seeing a t-shirt with the slogan ‘wide-load’ emblazoned across the back, being worn by a man who was clinically obese. In spite of the t-shirt mocking overweight people, it was probably the best chance he had of striking up a conversation at a party.

The problem with t-shirt slogans is how to define a boundary between freedom of speech/dress and public decency. The law forbids the use of offensive, abusive or insulting language under the Public Order Act (which extends to clothing) but even this is open to interpretation. What mortally offends one person will often inspire confidence in another. Given the size of the task involved in judging every single t-shirt to decide if it is fit to be worn in public, the Government would need to appoint a judge who is capable of sitting on a chair and just nodding (or shaking) their head for long periods of time whilst the designs are paraded past. I nominate Myleene Klass.