Saturday, April 14, 2007

Tina Arena On The Talent Shows

Tina Arena is an excellent singer, but she's apparently not a fan of shows like 'Australian Idol':
AUSTRALIA'S biggest-selling female recording artist has launched a scathing attack on reality TV talent quests, as "completely ludicrous" and insulting.

Tina Arena, who is treading the boards in London's West End production of the musical Chicago, said her profession was being "prostituted" by the explosion in reality TV singing quests.

Arena, 39, said she was working hard to ensure her family - French partner Vincent Mancini and one-year-old son Gabriel - were "set up enough".

"Because I'm under no delusions either - when I do come back to Australia I probably won't be working anywhere near the extent that I work here," she said.

"There's not a lot of work in Australia, that's the reality. The only work that's left there is taken by reality TV.

"I've always been a great advocate for new talent and finding new talent. As to the ways and means they go about this, I think it's completely ludicrous.

"I'm tired of being constantly insulted by what I see on TV and people thinking that they're going to genuinely be stars when they are exploited financially, visually.

"They go off, they get this taste of something, the 15 minutes is over, they all wonder what they've been through."

Arena is well qualified to talk about the subject.

She burst onto the scene at the tender age of seven in the hugely popular TV show Young Talent Time.

That was decades before the public seemed to buy into the idea that anyone can be a "star" - a term she feels has "lost its shine and definition".

"I feel as though my job has been prostituted, totally," Arena said.

"I've spent 32 years honing my craft, I've had an extraordinary journey.

"It used to really disappoint me when people used to say, 'that Talent Time, it'd never work again'.

"Well, you guys are doing it now except you are taking what was a genuinely beautiful, wholesome concept and you are bastardising it and you are exploiting the people."

The solution, according to Arena, is to offer people quality content and to experiment and take risks.

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