TV: Tool Academy

So this article’s about this really edgy, underground, left field TV show that you probably haven’t heard of. I mean, it’s so, so clever that you probably won’t fully understand it, so maybe it’s not worth you watching it.

Basically, it’s this programme on E4, the second series has just started and there are so many elements to it; seriously. First of all it toys with British male subculture. It makes you question how deeply ingrained our cultural values lie; the great, admirable ones like – yeah, binge drinking is cool – yeah, getting laid is cool – yeah, cheating on my girlfriend is cool. Turn out for some of the people on the show those cultural foundations are pretty sturdy.

Then there’s the really trippy angle, like, the show really messes with these peoples’ heads. I mean, the men on it think they’re on one show and they’re actually on another. They think they’re being celebrated, but they’re actually being mocked and ridiculed and turned into villains: like convincing a medieval ragamuffin that sticking his head in the stocks makes him look way cool.

This makes you question your own actions, like, I think I’m pretty sound, but am I really? Do I really look like a dick, when I’m flailing my cigarette around outside a bar and drinking my hugely expensive rum and coke that I don’t really like?

It also makes you question the morality of the programme itself. I mean, is it really right to make a show mocking these people when they think they’re being celebrated, just because most of us think they’re absolute idiots?

Plus, when these people find out they’re being played for fools, they choose to stay on the show for a cash prize. They choose to be humiliated in front of the nation (the ten people who watch) for money, putting financial gain over dignity and surely demonstrating there is something hugely wrong with the society we live in.

Episode one aired last week, and this guy, like, pierced his scrotum in a bar with a ring pull then left the show saying that the other contestants were immature. I mean, that really is living the alternative lifestyle.

So yeah, that’s this really awesome, deep show I’ve been watching. No, of course, I don’t mean Tool Academy, presented by Rick Edwards, on Tuesdays at 10pm – I live in East London and wear fucking brogues.

The Harker provides a platform for young (unpaid) writing talent.