Ex On The Beach

After an earnest few weeks on the blog, it’s time to return to the world of trash TV and my conflicted opinions about not being able to stop myself watching it.  At the heart of this will be the fact that I wish I was more like the people on these shows (more muscular, better at going out, on a free holiday), while simultaneously enjoying a smug feeling that I am better than them (I am not taking part in desperate reality shows).  Ultimately, switching my brain off while this nonsense is on is my version of meditation and mindfulness, so we can pretty much guess my level here anyway.

Ex On The Beach is back for an eighth series.  No, really.  Those who thought that the 2014 concept couldn’t live on through the years has been proven wrong.  It’s a bit strange really, as the central hook of that first series all those summers ago was that the contestants had no idea what show they were actually taking part in.  They thought they had been whipping their bodies into shape for a beach-based dating reality show, only to find out that, one by one, their exes would be washing up unannounced on the beach, leading to the same feelings of regret as brought on by the sickly sweet cocktail whose name forms the hilarious pun of the show’s title.  In all subsequent seasons, young folk in bikinis and short shorts have willingly turned up to have the dirty laundry of their tawdry love lives dragged out of the sand for all to see.  Honestly, you really can’t believe what personal things people will share in order to gain attention.  It’s a bit like an unwanted blog about TV shows I suppose.

Sharing its home channel with Geordie Shore, I knew this MTV format was right up my alley.  Forcing the housemates in the boys’ house I shared in Brixton at the time was less certain, but by hook or by crook I managed to keep up with those first eight episodes.  I had to find out whose ex was next.  They were placated by the stringiness of the bikinis on show, as the programme’s casting team ensured sure that only the most spectacular bodies made it in.  But all the contestants somehow looked better than they deserved, as their behaviour was in turn the appalling factor that, once drawn in by gratuitous footage of bikini bottoms being hoiked out of sandy bum cracks, kept viewers like myself hooked as the drunken car crashes played out one after the other.

And the show really does need something to keep you viewing, as you are wading through a lot of flannel.  The average one-hour episode is split into four quarters by advert breaks.  Once you’ve taken out 15 minutes of commercials, the remaining time is bulked out by each quarter beginning with a recap of what’s just happened and ending with a throw-forward to what’s happening next.  So not only are you watching trash once, but each occurrence gets three airings until thoroughly burned into your bleeding retinas.  Attempts at tension-building are also manifested by the ever-present countdown to the next ex, which can be in T-minus 48 hours or ten minutes or anything in between.  Traditionally, the Tablet of Terror (which seems to be the only communications device the contestants are allowed) pings in the least terrorising way possible to summon three housemates to the beach on which these exes simply won’t stop appearing.  You’re asked repeatedly whose ex is next until you can’t think about anything else.

Obediently, the three chosen ones wait on sun loungers getting increasingly anxious about whose psychotic ex-bird or possessive jilted boyfriend will emerge from the surf to ruin their free holiday.  You can bet your bikini bottoms that someone will make a comment along the lines of “my anus is twitching like a rabbit’s nose” which really helps non-viewers understand the tone of the show (in case they hadn’t gathered this already).  Cue some very drawn-out editing and probably a cut to a commercial break before, finally, some drowned rat appears in the surf trying to look sexy.  I’m not sure if we’re supposed to believe that they’ve swum all the way from home.  I always imagine the production team helping them get waist deep in the waves while trying to prevent the three on the beach from noticing.  Presumably, somebody else is also attempting to stop bemused holiday-makers from wondering into shot.  Somehow, the ex doesn’t drown and makes their way to the sun loungers, and high drama immediately ensues.  Invariably, one half of the ex-couple wants to get back with the other, but the other has already been through all the contestants like a steam train, or cheated on them 36 times with a minibus of singles from Sheffield.  Either way, at some point, they’ll still claim to love each other.

And so it goes on.  More exes appear.  Alcohol is used to goad arguments.  The Tablet of Terror sets up dating opportunities designed to drive the most jealousy possible.  Lads try to crack on.  Girls get pied.  Each situation can only climax in one of two ways.  Either there’s actual fisticuffs which erupt after cocktails get flung poolside in outbursts of rage.  Or enough adults finally consent to a bit of rumpy-pumpy, in which case you can readjust your undercrackers watching a duvet quiver through night-vision lenses.  If this doesn’t fulfil you, then you don’t deserve to watch.

I should point out that nobody wins the show.  Some contestants get booted off at arbitrary moments, all with an irreverent voiceover that’s genuinely glad to see the back of them.  More recent series have included twists to liven things up, such as exes appearing at surprise moments rather than just on the beach.  And there always seems to be a Geordie Shore cast member in the mix just in case the real people don’t know how to drink too much and then let loose with their bottled-up emotions.  It all reminds you why encountering other British people abroad on holiday is so embarrassing.

Series 5 was a particular hoot where the best exes from the previous seasons showed up again to prove they had learned nothing from their own behaviour the last time around.  In fact, they had actually worked out that the more outrageous their behaviour (in terms of womanising, man-ising (is that a word?), fighting and throwing tantrums), the more likely they were to get invited onto other reality shows, such as Celebrity Big Brother, to draw out full media careers from a skillset that basically boils down to having colourful sexual histories and enjoying a bit of camera attention.  Cue my jealousy again.

This is because, in this day and age, both genders can do whatever they want, with or without each other, and I am only too happy to see it broadcast across my screens.  All you need is a sizeable social media following, a big presence on the nightclub scene of a regional city and oodles of wild abandon, and you too could be slopping your way into a show that’s repeated in MTV’s schedule as often as what seems like ten times a day.  And with series 7, filmed in Thailand, appearing to unveil a deep lowering of the standard in physical appearances for the contestants (I don’t want to call people fat or ugly, so I’ll just beat around their bushes instead), we’ve all got a much better chance.  Maybe the more beautiful folk are on Bromans or Survival Of The Fittest.

I’ve already gone on too long, but I can’t bear not to mention the spin-off show, called Ex On The Beach: Body SOS.  In it, Vicky Pattison (love her) and her celebrity trainer mates help real people get bodies worthy of emerging from the sea as if they were an ex on a beach.  You don’t actually need to have been a love rat to be on this.  An episode typically has a slim lad looking to bulk up with his first muscle, and a girl with wobbly bits from too much drinking who’d like to wear a bikini without people poking her with sticks and chasing her from their village with pitchforks.  Each victim is cruelly forced to strip down in their raw state and walk into the British sea, before finally emerging transformed from the sea somewhere much sunnier, where their friends and family have gathered to approve of them more than they did before.  I fast-forward everything in between as it’s just people whingeing and crying, but worth a watch if you like that sort of thing and don’t expect any helpful information about how to live more healthily.

From my position on the self-diagnosed autistic spectrum, modern dating is hard to understand.  Suffice to say that Ex On The Beach sheds no further light on why people do certain things, just that they do them while ranting and raving.  Sex and affection are used as weapons in a battle of the genders.  The only winner really is me on the sofa, wilfully numbing my brain so I no longer feel the torment of office life in London, titillating myself with all the emotional highs and lows of a drunken holiday without having to worry about sun-burning my shoulders or how much liquid I can take in my hand luggage on easyJet.

Geordie Shore

Before I lived in a Sky household, this show was completely out of reach to me, yet I knew straightaway on its launch in 2011 that I would love it.  A UK version of Jersey Shore that had out-blowjobbed its predecessor by episode one.  These were young people who went out, and I was a young person who went out.  I finally found myself with access to MTV in 2013 and quickly caught up on old series while devouring the new one.  The cast were like better versions of me – in better shape, wearing better clothes, followed by a film crew (while nobody is interested in what I do).  The drama, the relationships, the epic nights out: its scandal was surpassed only by its entertainment factor.

As series 15 airs (despite multiple locations and switch ups to keep things fresh), I think I am slowly falling out of love with Geordie Shore.

It now seems so cyclical and repetitive that its charms are no longer working for me.  Each episode and series are made up of concentric plot circles that go along the following lines:

1.       Everyone gets excited about getting drunk, drinks drinks to get drunk, is drunk, drinks more drinks, is too drunk, loses all inhibitions to the extent that they ruin the night, wakes up the next day with remorse

2.       Everyone gets excited about going out, the girls spend ages doing eye make-up and making sure every part of their body is ready, often sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of mirrors to do this, emerging from a room that is an absolute bombsite looking pneumatically put together for the sole purpose of partying, the boys iron a t shirt and pop on some concealer, everyone has some pre-drinks downstairs in that weird house, everyone cheerses, Gary says get in the two minivans that have come to fetch them, they walk into their VIP area in the club and if you look carefully at the people in the background you can see the pure hatred/envy on their faces, rapidly edited shots show silly dancing and drink downing accompanied by housemate voiceover describing the drinks as ‘flowing’, the tunes as ‘banging’ and the whole night as being ‘great’.  Once things have gone too far, it’s Gary again who rounds them up and back into the minivans (the fact they don’t always vomit on the way home still baffles me – this actually only happens occasionally), before they are filmed jumping out of the minivans and storming into the house, with some of the girls weeing outside.  Of course.  Then the group devours all sorts of takeaway (I have no idea who supplies this to them but a full feast always seems to be waiting), throws some of the takeaway at each other and then starts drifting off to bed, subject to whichever argument has broken out.  Invariably, some attempt sexual intercourse which either fails due to drunkenness, vomiting or arguments, or succeeds, leading to footage of duvet twitching that is about as erotic as someone inserting their index finger into the other hand’s curled finger as part of the international symbol of shagging

3.       Boy meets girl.  Boy wants to sleep with girl.  Boy pursues aggressive policy of being flirty with girl.  Girl convinces self that she quite likes boy.  Boy is clear to girl that this is nothing serious.  Girl convinces self that she is fine just to be casual with boy.  Boy seals deal with girl.  Girl continues to tell herself that she is fine with this being a casual arrangement, as that’s what boy wants, after all.  Boy tashes on with another woman while out with girl.  Girl goes mental and realises she has caught feelings for boy.  Boy continues to mug girl off with cruel emotional manipulation until, three to four series later, girl has stopped hurting and only occasionally cries when boy flirts with other girls in front of her

4.       Cast member has incredible underlying rage issue that bubbles away unnoticed until an accumulation of any of the above triggers a huge outburst that results either in damage to private property (punched taxi window, kicked-in household phonebox door etc) or damage to other cast member

At the heart of the narrative tension for many series was the love story between Gary and Charlotte (see point 3 above).  Along with Tim and Dawn in The Office, I believe this is one of only two accurate portrayals on TV of real-life love.  Somehow meant for each other, their courtship was a series of missed opportunities and stung emotions.  But, when together, their chemistry shone through.  When Charlotte stayed at Gary’s one series and surprised herself with a fart during sex, she then laughed so hard so wet herself.  Throughout, all Gary could do was laugh too.  This is what I think true love is: being charmed by another’s (lack of control over their) bodily functions.

In fact, it’s the adjustments to the cast that have altered the show’s structure.  Geordies come and go, but Gary seems to be there for life (129 episodes and counting).  But because the show is filmed in advance, it feels like it’s not keeping up with the instant nature of celebrity that social media enables in this day and age.  Relationships portrayed in the show are known to be over by the time it airs.  And when cast members are axed due to bad behaviour, there is only rumour as to what they have done, rather than a full explanation which makes an example of them to the impressionable young viewers this is aimed at.  Questions abound: why don’t they have mobiles?  What’s the deal with pretending they are working for a business?  In fact, who is Anna and why on earth would she still take part?  Why aren’t there enough bedrooms?  Do they clean their teeth after eating takeaway before going to bed?  What’s happened to Now magazine, as they seemed to be involved in the early series, didn’t they?

Anyway, there’s something about these Geordie gasbags I can’t get enough of.  I can't wait for the carnage each time we roll their intros in the opening credits, which often cause me the following thoughts:

Sophie: “I could talk the back legs off a donkey.”

I don’t know what’s worse: the fact she has been given this to say, or that she is performing some 70s disco move while doing it.  Either way, I love her, and getting shoved out of the way by her in the VIP section of the Isle of MTV in Malta this year was a highlight of my pointless life.

Chloe: “I’m totally crackers me, like.”

This is a very accurate description of everything about Chloe.

Gary: “I [pause] should have a degree [pause] in pulling women.”

He should be chancellor of the university of pulling women, saddling young people with a lifetime of crippling student debt just for wanting to learn how to tash on.

Holly: “I’m fit, I’m flirty and I’ve got double FFs.”

I’m sure the producers have had nightmares trying to match Holly’s varying hair colours to the opening credits over the years.

James: “The hardest graft I’ve ever done is doing me hair.”

Such a lad thing to say.  James left the show a few seasons back after a very good run.  Like me, he got bored of the repetition and grew up a bit.

Now I’m no longer a young person who goes out, but an older person who barely drinks and can’t stay up past 10pm, my interaction with Geordie Shore’s drunken scenes has altered.  From identifying with them, I moved to a phase of living vicariously through them.  I could bask in the camaraderie offered by the fallout of a big night going out out.  But now I am in a phase where it appals me.  It’s not the behaviour, it’s the repetition.  A new bunch of girls are getting themselves mugged off.  A new bunch of boys are mugging them off.  And I’m wasting an hour a week mugging myself off by continuing to watch it.  And yet, I cannot stop.