About as progressive as a 1970s housewife trying to be ‘with it’

Published: November 28, 2011 at 11:43pm

That round pink one looks quite gay, and what about that white and black square? I'd say he was mixed race. Now all we need is a trannie and a girl with fake bosoms and we're progressive.

I got trapped watching the first part of Liquorish after Inkontri. You know how it is sometimes: you sit there horrified wondering why you’re sitting there horrified, and yet you can’t pull yourself away.

So they were interviewing candidates for something or other. I don’t know what for and I don’t care either. But the prejudice, the tokenism, the rudeness, the vulgar and crass prying, and the sheer stupidity – oh my God.

So first on is a man in his 20s. Before he comes on screen, the host says “We’ve discovered something really strange about him: he has Asian blood.”

Really. You don’t say. Totally out there.

So he comes on screen and it’s immediately obvious why he was chosen. He’s a dancer and he’s gay. And the boss of the interviewers asks him – you know, all subtle like – “SO ARE YOU A FLAMBOYANT GAY OR A RESERVED GAY?”

I do that thing where you bury your head in the cushions and hope it will all go away, but when I resurface, she’s still at it. “SO ARE YOU OPEN ABOUT YOUR SEXUALITY?”

He seemed like a nice chap without a sarcastic bone in his body, so he didn’t say: “Actually, I’m pretending to be the father of six children, who drives a family saloon and digs up the garden every Sunday. And if I weren’t open about my sexuality you kind of blew it with your television announcement anyway.”

The next man on caused a real frisson of excitement. The host built up the tension. “THIS IS THE FIRST TIME WE HAVE EVER HAD A PERSON LIKE THIS ON LIQUORISH.”

A person like this? I thought maybe somebody with elephantitis or two heads and no legs. As the music indicated that this unusual person was about to walk on screen, the Boss Interviewer said in a loud TV whisper to her colleagues: “DAN HU L-EWWEL DARBA LI KELLNA PERSUNA TA’ DAN IL-KULUR FUQ LIQUORISH.”

I hit the cushions again and when I looked up, there was a Maltese man, with Maltese mannerisms, a Maltese accent, speaking native Maltese, and with a Maltese face, but with African blood. And as with the man before him, they treat him as a freak not as a person. They pry into the circumstances of his birth, they demand to know why he doesn’t look for his father, and they expect an explanation why he thinks of the man who raised him as his father. They ask him NOTHING about himself. Nothing. They are only interested in his colour and how he came to be conceived.

Next up is a transsexual, we’re told. There’s more excitement, and a retired school-teacher in his 60s, with thick specs, male pattern baldness and the typical clothes of a man that age walks in, carrying a box of ingredients for kusksu.

There is obviously some mistake, but they press on bravely, determined not to be cheated of their trans-sexual, which would spoil their set of Outlandish Freaks.

“Will you be comfortable with your sexuality on a challenge like this?” an interviewer asks. “I taught both girls and boys for years,” he replies.

The Boss Interviewer, a dim light going on in the back of her brain, picks up the form he had filled in, and tells him that he ticked the box ‘trans-sexual’. “That was a mistake,” he says. “I was using a computer in an internet cafe and pressed the wrong key.”

And she says – I promise you – “BUT ARE YOU SURE? YOU DIDN’T HAVE ANY OPERATIONS OR ANYTHING?”

And after that they brought on a 21-year-old woman – Charlene from Kalkara – who spent all her money having new large breasts installed and who walked onto the screen wearing five-inch heels and a wet-look bikini. Sadly, when she opened her mouth to speak all the magic was lost: “Ehe iva jiena naghmel ritratti tieghi liebsa l-underwear fuq Facebook.”

I stopped watching. Life is too short. And those people inhabit a world so alien that it’s scarcely conceivable that we share the same 17-mile piece of rock.




35 Comments Comment

  1. ciccio2011 says:

    I actually started watching when the 21 year old walked in with her enlarged breasts.

    I was interested in her bikini.

  2. anthony says:

    “Wilkinsons Liquorice Allsorts” in your pic brought back lovely memories of my childhood. We bought them from Reno in Strada Zakkarija and from Camilleri tal-helu in Strada Merkanti.

    I am afraid I don’t have a clue what the liquorish inkontri you are talking about are.

  3. DV says:

    I was watching it when the black lad came on and I thought the way that woman spoke to him was disgraceful. Her ignorance is unbelievable. But I don’t equate it to Super One. The programme is outsourced.

    [Daphne – That’s absolutely irrelevant. The Labour Party owns the station, and everything that is shown on it becomes part of its brand. Political media don’t exist only to communicate the party’s message, but to brand the party. There is absolutely no other reason to go to all the time, trouble and expense of owning a station otherwise. It doesn’t make money, but instead the parties have to work to feed their stations.]

  4. Stephen says:

    what bothers me most is that this sort of garbage is popular.

  5. Elle says:

    what is it with the Labour Party and broadcasting? the rubbish you described above is nothing though compared to

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHDfsJTOsUU&feature=related

    at 1:36

  6. Kenneth Cassar says:

    They broadcast such trash on TV, but then they ban ‘Stitching’. What a nation of idiots.

  7. Lorna saliba says:

    Well..at least one thing’s for sure. Super one brings to light the sub-culture we’re up against and reminds us of what can happen should we allow this country’s governance in the hands of these peasants.

    • anthony says:

      There is no way this can be disallowed.

      It is one of the very high tags we all have to pay to ensure democratic governance.

      The only way of improving the odds is to do all we can to reduce the preponderance of peasants.

      I have spent a lifetime attempting to do so with very limited success. I think.

  8. Pecksniff says:

    http://www.liquorish.tv/

    The presenter of this programme is Andrea Cassar and next April those chosen from the auditions will be taken on an adventure in “yet another far-flung corner of the globe”.

    [Daphne – The host was a man.]

    • Pecksniff says:

      Could be the host was on the audition panel. On their web site Andrea Cassar enters the picture when they embark on their journey next April.
      What do expect from a reality show on the lines of ” I am a celebrity, get me out of here” with a shoestring budget.

  9. pampalun says:

    Well to think that the national station, PBS, out of taxpayer money, have been showing this trash for so many years! And if you think that this is bad, you should watch some Xarabank shows, if you can bear them. Bring on Franco Debono :).

  10. cat says:

    It seems that One TV is accepting everything in order to get money from the air time bought by the production houses.

    It seems that the price for the air time is convenient as plenty of producers are choosing this station with presenters who had been working for other TV stations.

    Liquorish is Andrea Cassar’s production and we all know were Andrea has started from.

  11. Dee says:

    Anyone ever followed PBS’s “Deceduti “or “Min Imissu”?

    Why do they feel the need to sink to such disgustingly low vulgar levels to wring a half-hearted laugh from the audience?

  12. Yeled Shovav says:

    This made me laugh out loud in the uni library. So yep, this was great.

  13. U Le! says:

    I stopped watching. Life is too short. And those people inhabit a world so alien that it’s scarcely conceivable that we share the same 17-mile piece of rock

    Daphne, please pardon me for copying and pasting your last paragraph, but not only is life too short and that some people actually live in a parallel universe. What worries me more is that their vote counts as much as mine and there is no IQ threshold to obtain the right and duty to vote.

    This probably sounds elitist. It is not intended to be so. All I am trying to say is that choosing your future is more important than choosing a holiday destination or a hair colour.

    • A.Attard says:

      Democracy was originally conceived like that then it was all messed up with universal suffrage

    • d_riddler says:

      I agree with you wholeheartedly. I have been suggesting this IQ test for voting since 1996, at least.

      I cannot bear the fact that some people can have a vote when they are not even able to string a line of thought.

      Yes, it might sound elitist, but…

    • d_riddler says:

      Have you ever tried to watch a piece of ‘Klassi Ghalina’ on One on Sunday?

      It’s incredible. Not only is it not funny, but they do their best to perpetuate the idea that the typical Laburist is a ‘hamallu’ and the typical Nazzjonalist is well educated, rich and elitist.

      I really cannot understand what Ray Attard is doing in that show.

    • H.P. Baxxter says:

      U Le!, I share your pain.

      In normal countries, the underclass doesn’t vote. In Malta, they vote in droves. That’s how we reach the blasphemous figure of 99% voting rate. Malta needs a Special Democracy, like the Special Olympics. Weighted voting. How about that? The French did it in Algeria.

      • A.Attard says:

        Agreed, Baxxter, and to make it easear make it weighted according to tax paid, the higher the tax the more wieght the vote has.

        It would eliminate the parasites and the evaders from the equation in one go, leaving only those who contribute to the wellfare of the country.

      • mc says:

        “Malta needs a Special Democracy, like the Special Olympics. Weighted voting. How about that?”

        Tghidux hmerijiet.

      • H.P. Baxxter says:

        That is absolutely the last thing you want to do! Caqnu’s vote would weigh a thousand times more than mine. I take the view that contributions to the welfare of the country are not monetary.

  14. mc says:

    On another subject. Pity Kenneth Zammit Tabona had to spoil his otherwise reasonably good opinion piece by pompously referring to “we, the people”. I would like to ask him a question. If “we” are “the people”, who or what are “they”?

    http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20111129/opinion/Art-and-history-on-the-move.396038

  15. Marcus says:

    There are no standards on One TV. ‘Ilsien in-nisa’ is just another sub-standard talk show. Basta jithallas l-air time.

  16. JCIM says:

    Li ma nistax nifhem kif il-programm issa qed inmaqdruh gahx mar fuq is-super one, possibli ilhu dawn is-snin kolla jsir issa sibt xi tmaqdar fih?

    Ara vera m’ghandekx xtaghmel, is-sabih hu li tarhom il-programmi u tmaqdar, jien li ma jogghobniex semplici ma narahx, ghalekk hemm hafna stazzjonijiet biex jekk ma jogbokx wiehed tara iehor. La tibqa is-segwi il-programm sinjal li jkun qed jogbok/jolqtok.

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