Okay girls, scenario time. You have been watching Big Brother OZ, it is about four weeks in – just after Andy the B&D queen had been voted off the show. It is late at night and BB has set up a crazy party with heaps of alcohol for the inmates – who are nicely toasted and feeling a little bit naughty. In the middle of the celebrations Jemma goes to the bathroom to check her lip-gloss – and while she is in there someone comes up behind her with a party mask on. Then, while you watch – the mysterious masked stranger stabs Jemma, leaving her in a pool of her own dark red blood. (Horrors – that doesn’t match her nude pink lipgloss.)
If this situation had occurred, you can’t tell me that you wouldn’t be glued to the programme every second from then on. Millions across NZ and Australia would have a field day playing their own version of Inspector Poirot, coming up with their own theories as to whodunit and who could be next. You would be watching to observe every action of the suspects, analysing possible motives and devouring all the information you could lay your hands on about the remaining inmates. You, and all of your friends, would make the programme the highest rating show in the world – turning all of those left on the show into mega stars and the producers into millionaires several times over. That and the sales of nude pink lipgloss would go through the roof.
Dead Famous is the latest novel from comedian/writer Ben Elton, and it explores something all of us are becoming increasingly aware of – Reality Television.
House Arrest the programme in the book, is very similar to Big Brother in that ten inmates are shut into a house stuffed with television cameras for a 3 month stay. But something unexpected happens that catapults the show into reality television history – a murder. Suddenly the shows slogan:: “One house. Ten contestants. Thirty cameras. Forty microphones. One survivor…” becomes extremely poignant. The problem? Millions of people watched the murder occur, but nobody saw who did it.
Dead Famous is a very funny and dark parody of all Reality television, with its vain, ambitious contestants obsessed with each others tattoos, body piercings and star signs, not to mention their endless hugging and kissing and claims of “I Love You.”
Throughout the novel the ultimate point Elton is trying to convey is there is no way reality television can in ANY way be Objective. The only reality of any reality television show is the ambition of the contestants – be it money fame or infamy, and the desires of those creating and shaping it (usually money.)
And this is something the detective in charge of the murder case, crusty Inspector Coleridge, is going to have to learn very fast – along with the ins and outs of lesbianism, blow jobs, sordid pasts and the various types of greed.
Like no doubt most of you are, I was new to Ben Elton’s novels – but absolutely thrilled to have discovered them. Dead Famous was so gripping I couldn’t put it down – an Agatha Christie with a modern and recognisable setting, with characters you know and love or love to hate and every element to ensure you can’t put it down until you have finished.
If the escapades of Andy, Anita, Ben, Blair, Chrissy, Flash, Jemma, Johnnie, Lisa, Peter, Rachel, Sara Marie Sharna and Todd kept you glued to your seat, the story of David, Jazz, Layla, Hamish, Dervla, Woggle, Moon Sally Gerry and Kelly will keep you riveted.
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