From the World Cup to the Kirill Hanouna filming: how TV is creating a ‘disgraceful consensus’

bMany viewers will tell you: after watching every World Cup match, there is a terrible aftertaste, a residue of self-preservation, an intimate rejection of its most basic principles. In front of his screen, the football fan finds himself torn between the appetite for matches with attractive posters and the moral contempt in which they are played. Suspicion of corruption in awarding the competition, disrespect for human rights, death of migrant workers, absurd environmental disaster (water to grow lawns in the desert, air-conditioned stadiums), discrimination against LGBT people: there are many non-sporting reasons not to watch this World Cup; And yet we watch it.

11.59 million viewers watched the match between France and Denmark (2-1) on Saturday, November 26 at 17:00 on TF1. I’ll admit, I was stuck in front of my screen too (those who never sin, throw the vuvuzela at me first). If everyone morally goes along with their little agreement – I only watch streaming, only national team matches, with only one eye – it’s not enough to suppress crime. by recalling “Thousands Dead” What would the building of these modern arenas lead to, according to Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, one asks himself: “Is this really a stadium where these twenty-two gladiators thrash around in their shorts, or swim. a pool of blood »

Hence the uncomfortable feeling of participating in the building of a shameful consensus. One can imagine that it is the world that, in its own way, produces this, but this mechanism, which consists in becoming in front of his screen an auditory craftsman of what man abhors, is much older. We can date – arbitrarily of course – 2001 when this new tacit contract emerged. At that time, “Loft Story” (M6) burst onto the screens and shocked many minds: people deprived of freedom like rats locked in a cage were filmed to satisfy our voyeuristic appetite. It’s scary, we tell ourselves, like what happens in a swimming pool.

Since then, shock entertainment has become commonplace, and with it has expanded the empire of the infamous Consensus. Thus, there are many shows that we watch not because we like them, but because of the strange alchemy that their humiliating power produces in us. Honestly, who wants to support a show where the host pours noodles down his underwear and calls his columnist an MP? “shame” alive? There are not many, we imagine a little naively. However, “Don’t touch my post! They are on top, even attracting more and more seniors.