Clive James

Ainda a propósito do programa Prós e Contras e da generalidade dos programas televisivos, palco preferencial para declarações de idiotice e incompetência por parte de quem hoje dá a cara na têvê, lembrei-me desta pequena passagem de um discurso de Clive James sobre o fenómeno da desertificação na TV, no que há qualidade de fazedores de programas diz respeito, a que ele deu o nome de Bring Back the Overqualified:

“Vilified from two directions, the older generation of mandarins lost some of their confidence, and the younger generation started off without it. There was a lost of belief, and especially in the area I am talking about tonight. The left wing’s simplistic loathing of paternalism, and the right wing’s disingenuous advocacy of the sovereign people, combined to produce a lasting, toxic residue: a fear of putting anyone on the screen for long who might look or sound as if he or she (especially she, sadly enough) has been blessed – whether by background, education or the hand of God – with an air of authority not shared by the viewers at home. One result was this fading away of the old soldiers. Another was their partial replacement by these disembodied voices. And perhaps the most disturbing result of all, visible in all too many fields of television now, has been the gradual but seemingly unstoppable emergence of fresh faces with nothing to say for themselves. I’m not here to mock them: not just because I don’t want them to mock me back for my own faults, but because I’m sure most of them are nice, honest people. I don’t belong to the school of thought that says Terry Christian was invented by the X-files special effects department. He looks to me like a brave young man struggling desperately against odds. What I question is the notion that television personalities chosen to be unthreatening present no threat.”