Binge drinking is sort of the new black these days, isn't it? Well, being against it is. K07 starts throwing money towards campaigns to wean baby-faced teens off fizzy peach-flavoured liquor sherbets and the next minute you know every man and his dog have decided to wave a flag denouncing problem drinking. If binge drinking existed in human form we'd be outside its house with burning torches demanding satisfaction. We're an adorably rabid lot, truly we are.
Last Monday, Channel Ten jumped aboard the train with its in no way hysterical knee-jerk screening of Britain's The Truth About Binge Drinking which took us through a thoroughly heady month in the life of "pop star and celebrity" Michelle Heaton (don't worry, I'd never heard of her either) as she took to alcohol with a gusto rarely seen since Chuck Bukowski decided to pop by Schoolies week with a slab and a platinum Amex. Considering at the time of the special's screening the nation was a week off debuting Big Brother 2008, it seems somewhat unfair to impose a sense of guilt about self-medicating upon beleaguered audiences during a period they no doubt required it most. God knows what else we can turn to in order to distract ourselves from the offensively entertaining morass of mindlessness taking place in the Gold Coast compound. My vote's with 'ludes.
Truth opens with a bang, informing us in a clipped, self-important voice-over that "Britain is awash with binge drinkers". Presumably they're all forced to wear a uniform of miniskirts and low-cut tops, since every montage in The Truth About Binge Drinking predominantly features young ladies staggering about wearing the sort of outfits that would have Pamela Anderson arrested at a Hookers and Deviates ball.
Our hostess, Ms Heaton, bravely undertakes the challenge-curse of getting absolutely rat-arsed for a period of one month while her tutting husband looks on disapprovingly.
Just to assure us it's no kind of lowbrow reality television-type stunt to boost her career, she visits a handful of specialists who tell her it's a bad idea and to cease this foolishness at once or be it on your head and beware the Ides of March and so forth. She blithely ignores them ("I'm not going to quit what I set out to do," she announces seriously at one stage, possibly confusing the fact that she's knocking back tequila shots in front of a camera crew with something of significant national importance), drinks more hooch than is recommended by the AHA, has a few little vomits and then decides she can't possibly complete the entire month as her GP has told her she's putting on weight. In the interim, we're treated to extreme close-ups of Michelle's heavily made-up face via mystifying portals entitled "Mum Cam" and "Hangover Cam" and the suspiciously convenient revelation that she can't hold her own at singing lessons simply because she's been drinking for six days straight.
It's hardly the sort of thing that's going to have barflies
handing over the keys to the liquor cabinet and calling it a day.
If anything, it only succeeded in having the patented Biggest
Loser effect on me whereby I become so consumed by the inherent
evils of everything paraded before me I have an uncontrollable urge
to roll around naked in all they have to offer. I once ate an
entire packet of biscuits and two coffee scrolls sitting through a
TBL weigh-in. The Truth About Binge Drinking
similarly led me towards a defiant glass of wine or three. Although
perhaps that was more about distracting me from the tediousness of
the show's vacuous attempt to take the moral high ground while
revelling in lingering shots of teenage girls bending over while
they puked.
I'll acknowledge that Truth at its heart had an important
message and, yes, as a nation we're probably a little more partial
to a shandy than is entirely healthy but honestly — of all
people to deliver us from evil and into the arms of sobriety,
Michelle Heaton is hardly the most obvious choice. She's a darker
shade of tangerine than an Oompa Loompa. I wouldn't buy a box of
Kleenex off her, let alone take advice about my health and habits.
Try watching Shane McGowan attempting to sing perched in front of
an industrial-sized fan in order to remain conscious if you're
looking for a more effective way to keep the masses away from the
liquor cabinet. After leaving his gig at the Prince of Wales, I
joined a Buddhist monastery and changed my name to Tenzin Bodhi.
The man is a walking advertisement for abstinence.
I guess in the long run whatever works to make you curb your
habit of winding up evenings alone lurching around your living room
with only a half-empty bottle of vodka and a copy of Fleetwood
Mac's Rumours for company should be applauded and if a
handful of stats about twitlette popsters bruising their livers
during a night at the discotheque gives you pause, then so be
it.
I'm going to wait until they employ Peter Cook and Oliver Reed
to send messages from beyond the grave such as Yul Brynner and even
then I'm pretty sure you'll have to pry the merlot from my cold,
dead hands.
After all, a lady's got to have her hobbies.
- By Marieke Hardy for The Age.