Flirting
Academy - Media
Madness
This
article was written after the showing of a TV documentary in 1999
about the Flirting Academy and 4 participants on one weekend
course. I fully accept that when we court the media, we are
opening ourselves out and should be prepared to take any
consequences that come our way. I believe we should always be
OK with what is written about us whether it is the truth or
not. If it's not true, sue. If it is, make
peace with who you are and realise the past has brought you to where
you are today!
An early
experience with the media gave rise to some interesting
thoughts about why we court public attention and how we deal with it
when it doesn’t work out quite how we expected.
I liken an obsession with
the media to being in lust.
We want it, we are driven to get it and when they cast their
discerning gaze on us, we are thrilled at being
chosen. There is something very alluring and desirable about
fame even if it means making a fool of ourselves.
Many of us are deeply attracted to it on one level and we offer
ourselves up to the people who can give it to us - the media… But
they are not always our one true love.. they have a dark side too.
They are fickle and often faithless.. always on the lookout
for the next victim. They
tease us and play with us, dangling veiled promises of fame and
fortune, and we lap it up.
We want it so much.
And they play with us for a while until one day they take us
in an spit us out, already on their way to sniff out the next bit of
new game. And we
offer ourselves up to it and without the willing 'victims' the media
circus that feeds on us would not exist. Our legal system is based on peer
judgment,
so it stands to reason that peer judgment, even when unfounded and
based on envy or jealousy is a way of life that we accept.
Envy - the enemy within
My cleaner’s son
had a bad accident. She
tried everywhere to get help from social services to install some
basic ‘disabled’ facilities in her house.
As a last resort she called her local councillor who took it
to the press. After
the article on her plight appeared, people started ringing up and
threatening her - accusing her of not needing the help,
of seeking fame on the back of her son’s illness… It’s
amazing how one person’s moment of even unsought fame can stir
such envy and hatred…not the media’s fault.. but isn’t it an
interesting observation of human behaviour at its worst.
I even caught
myself doing it recently, high handedly criticising Geri Halliwell's book and her
lack of life experience. A friend said perhaps you are jealous
and I took a long deep thought and laughed... Yes, it was jealousy..
ridiculous and stupid. Fortunately, I accepted what I
was doing and it's unlikely to happen again. Many people don't
know they do it and in their ignorance, allow envy to creep into
their lives as a damaging and destructive element.
The
lure of fame
A supermodel today
has a shelf life of 15 months. Being
a supermodel is the dream of millions of young girls. The recent TV exposure of the Elite model agency showed how
desperation for fame and recognition leads these children into a life
of being pimped at an age when they cannot understand the future
ramifications to their self esteem.
What builds them up falsely, like a drug high, and drops them
swiftly can also cause
them grief later and they will need to find ways to deal with that..
and get over it.
Andy Warhol’s
prediction of 15 minutes of fame becomes more possible for more
people, as the thirst for peeking into other people’s lives
continues.. and docu-soaps make up a large percentage of TV viewing.
Many of the people thrust into the limelight have no idea how
to deal with the aftermath of instant fame.
I have experienced
this instant fame myself, but I am lucky.
With 10 years of personal growth behind me, I have a sense of
who I am – I can deal with what people say because I know that
humans unfortunately seem in general to prefer knocking others
rather than building them up. I know that whatever
people say, it's more an indictment of them than of me.
And I am not ashamed of myself and who I am. As the occasional sleazy press piece comes
my way [and I say that non-judgementally, because I’ve had some
excellent stuff written about me too – see TV Quick for example
and the article in the Mirror Sat 28th],
I fully accept total responsibility for having invited it in
in the first place and how I choose to deal
with it .
For some that’s not so easy.
Accepting
responsibility
The tendency to
blame lurks like a boil bubbling beneath the surface.
We hear ourselves say “They made me do that, they misquoted
me, they made me look stupid, they edited
me” It’s
irrelevant. We open
ourselves out to it, and we must expect whatever comes in.
We can only make decisions to do or not to do. I let myself
be filmed from head to toe reclining on my settee, because I liked performing to the camera
– I smiled and flirted into the lens, and it made me feel good. Great for my personal vanity, but not necessarily good for
conveying the importance of the work I do with people!
What it may have a
conveyed about me in the context of the film and the emphasis put on
it went beyond my control the moment I let them film me.
But I chose to let go of that control and the results are not
exactly as I envisaged them.
And as I send the experience backwards into the annals of time,
pausing for a moment to say 'what can I learn from this' I
remember.... life happens... what next?
So, as you
watch this documentary, remember that we are the ones who dictate
the scandals in the tabloids, and the media feed our curiosity.
It’s a chicken and egg irresolvable situation.
This documentary is highly entertaining, but it’s focus is
on showing people sometimes at their silliest.
Sometimes editing out a piece of language in the context of
something much bigger can make what is done appear really
trivial. After all, it doesn’t make good TV to show someone
saying ‘ that was great’.
It doesn’t make good TV to show me in the slow process of
guiding you to access yourself at your best and after extensive
exercises, finding an animal that best symbolises you in this way,
but it does make good TV to pretend that we do a short
exercise to access the animal within.. out of context it can seem
ridiculous, in context it is perfectly natural and very powerful.
What
you don't see
Originally five
people were chosen as the focus for this documentary. One of
them, Monica Kumah, a 32 year old civil servant, was a very
serious girl. At the end of the workshop she had blossomed and
opened out the fun side of herself. Unfortunately, the
sound on her 'before' film didn't come out, so they chose not to use
her in the documentary. Monica gave this quote to the
Mirror Magazine
"It was
the best money I've ever spent. I was pretty serious, reserved
person before. Now, I can go up to people I find attractive
and chat to them. Sometimes you click, sometimes you don't,
but I've learned that you've got to be bold. Now I can tell if
someone likes me, before I just assumed they
wouldn't"
Since this course,
Monica has found a new man, gained more confidence at work and
increased her social circle.
Absolute lies - at
one stage a participant, Jim, was shown to stand up and admit
failure 3 times. What Jim tells me the camera doesn't show is
that AFTER having talked about failing 3 times, he says AND THEN
Geraldine reminded me about my animal state and I got into it and
SUCCESS. That to me is a travesty. I don't mind the poking
fun, but deliberate editing to show success as failure is NOT ON!
And, interestingly,
one of the participants who is shown to be highly critical on camera
later admitted to me privately that whilst much of the process in
the workshop was not for her, it did have an effect on her, that she
is now feeling really positive, has met some great people, had a lot
of fun that she did learn something about herself.
Sometimes it’s something that appears quite insignificant
at the time that mellows and grows and has far reaching
ramifications. In
this instance, some of the more positive quotes that she gave to the
camera were edited out in favour of the most critical ones.
Again, life happens.. what next.
Changes beyond
flirting skills
Another
thing that didn’t get shown because it
doesn’t make good, scandalous and silly TV, is
that during the weekend, Brian, one of the filmed participants, went
home and completed some long dormant forms to change his career from
employee to freelance. He
wrote to me later saying that it was directly attributable to
something I had said on the weekend about being yourself and doing
what is you. These
are the moments I cherish.
And whilst I understand that TV is TV and not true to life, I
would have loved to share those moments with a wider audience. I trust that you will all enjoy watching
this video and take it for what it is, not a documented accurate
account of all that happens on a flirting weekend, but a well edited
and constructed fantasy edited to show primarily, the funny side of human beings being
human.
First for Flirting - UK's only Flirting Academy
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