Star Academy!

Fortunately I have a television in my apartment here, otherwise I would be very bored indeed. The only problem is that it gets four channels on a good day, and sometimes they can be very blurry. But perhaps this is a good thing. I'm already sneaking home from the archives in time to catch Crossing Jordan (dubbed into French of course) and Verliebt in Berlin (German Ugly Betty, also dubbed into French). In the evening I can dine with a fine selection of American medical/scientific/police programs, as they show every single CSI, Cold Case, or whatever other Jerry Bruckheimer telelvision crap exists. Unfortunately the dubbing just highlights how crap the writing is, so you can imagine my delight a couple of weeks ago on finding a program on the people who restore France's chateaux and antiquities. The tour of the Sèvres china workshop was fantastic!

Anyway back to the main topic - Star Academy. I have never actually watched an episode of American Idol, but I have been fortunate to catch several episodes of the French version, Star Academy. It seems to be on at all hours of the day, in a Big Brother-like fashion, following the contestants around the chateau they all live in with hidden cameras to catch the little divas strangling each other. It's a fairly big production, but I was pleasantly surprised with the talent of the contestants, as they only accept people who actually play instruments and write their own music. I don't know if American Idol does that. But every week they have the big show with famous "musicians" who come on and perform with the contestants. The last couple of weeks the headliners were Celine Dion and Kylie Minogue (who are the "godmothers" of this year's show). Both were fine. While I don't always admire their music, I can certainly appreciate their popularity.

This week, however, was a bit of a horror. The major headliner this week was Johnny Hallyday. Who is Johnny Hallyday, you ask? Well.

He is by far the most famous rock musician in France. He is very old, not very attractive, not a great singer in my opinion, and just generally creepy. Nobody knows him outside of France. His main claim to fame among Americans is probably that he is the uncle of Michael Vartan, who starred with and dated Jennifer Garner from Alias before she married Ben Affleck (does anyone else thing she'd make an excellent best friend?). His music tends to be pretty crap, as most French rock does. My dad has a theory that a language needs lots of hard consonants to make it good for rock music, which of course French lacks almost completely. It does, however, make for some nice lite-pop ballads! Johnny's new album features his attempt to become Johnny Cash. He wears all black, also has the name Johnny, and plays acoustic guitar while singing a song called "Always," which is in French except for the word "always," which pops up every chorus. It's pretty horrible and they keep showing the music video for it on TV after German Ugly Betty so I have to be pretty vigilant to change the channel quickly otherwise I have to hide out in the bathroom until it is finished. But the French adore Johnny, one might even say worship him. I may not get my residence permit if someone from the Interior Ministry finds out that I am disparaging him in a blog that about four people in the United States read! It might in fact be a Homeland security sort of issue.


The other big act of Star Academy last night was Tokio Hotel, the teenage German (rock?) band with very architectural hair. I sort of thought they were a bit of a joke for a few weeks after I discovered who they were, but apparently they're not. It is very cold in Paris right now (we might see snow tonight!) but the announcer of the Star-Ac said that teenage girls had slept outside the theater for three nights in order to get in to see Tokio Hotel. And in the broad camera sweeps of the audience, there were several teenage girls with bangle bracelets all the way up their arms weeping convulsively in the audience. I do not understand. Apparently it is somewhat like what happened in the US when the Beatles arrived. But at least the Beatles were singing in English. I don't think anyone has any idea what Tokio Hotel is singing about since it's all in German. But I have to say, one thing I really appreciate is the way in which the lead singer has created the ultimate smoky eye. I experimented with the smoky eye for several months when I was a Kit Kat Girl in our lavish production of Cabaret as an undergrad. It really is a challenge to not overshadow (if you do, you look like a raccoon).


All in all, I think I'm stuck waiting for the next installment of patrimonial restoration documentaries before I will begin to enjoy television again. Is television in the rest of Europe this bad? My only other experience is the Netherlands, which actually has pretty good tv since they just import things and don't dub them. Obviously England has the BBC and things like EastEnders, but what about Germany, Italy, or Spain?