MTV say The Valleys is 'absolutely not about stereotyping'
THE makers of a new reality show based on life in South Wales have defended its portrayal of the area.
MTV’s The Valleys follows nine young people as they move in together in Cardiff — and has been described as Wales’s answer to The Only Way Is Essex (Towie).
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MTV’s new reality show The Valleys
The first edition of the new show, which includes two local wannabe celebrities in Swansea hairdresser Nicole Morris, who admits she “would love to be famous”, and Port Talbot’s Lateysha Grace, a 19-year-old accounts administrator, launches tonight.
Online trailers for the show that airs firmly after the watershed at 10pm had featured sheep in the title while its cast members promoted the show by talking about their sex, drinking and partying lifestyles.
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The show has prompted criticism from people in the South Wales valleys, fearing it will portray Welsh people as unintelligent and obsessed with going out and getting drunk or having sex.
Programme bosses have insisted the show is “absolutely not about stereotyping”, but community leaders have claimed the show paints a negative picture of people in South Wales, with singer Charlotte Church calling the series “horrific”.
The Cardiff-born star and TV presenter said: “I think it will be exploitative and a horrific representation of the country that I love.”
Also expressing her concern was Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood, who was born and raised in the valleys.
She said: “It looks to me as if it’s going to be a cheap, tacky and over-promoted television programme that is going to fit to the usual stereotypes.
“The valleys have got so much more to offer than what is going to be presented. I have no intention of watching it.”
Meanwhile, Rhondda MP Chris Bryant described the show as “hideously patronising”.
geraint.thomas@swwmedia.co.uk
01792 514621
Comments
by Philosoraptor
Wednesday, September 26 2012, 8:00AM
“This is drivel TV to appease those who have drivel brains, unable to comprehend a good storyline that is now severely lacking on modern day television. A product of the Big Brother generations, an estranged love child of the unfortunately related Truman Show movie that never intended such a genre to kick off for fear that the idiotic would just sit down and watch people pretending to be people, as shown by the people who did nothing but watched J. Carey's character all day long with no lives whatsoever.
For the sake of humanity this drivel has to stop and it is a little bit worrying that only a few weeks ago one of the most impressive pieces of television went almost unnoticed. There was a short 30 second clip in a Horizon episode, whose scale and achievement was far surpassing of anything even the very biggest budgets in Hollywood has produced. It was an eye opening moment that the very best directors and CGI artists could never themselves have imagined and something that even took away the breath of the scientists who were expecting it... we saw the work of a supercomputer that mapped in 3D over 1,000,000 individual galaxies immediately surrounding our own.
That should have been regarded television history because my goodness, it was ridiculously impressive to see in HD quality. I have never seen anything like it, and it was a real interpretation of a 3D map around our world, a much better form of reality TV if you ask me.”
by siarad2
Tuesday, September 25 2012, 8:43PM
“How did these commentators get the special treatment of a preview.
However I don't care as I can't afford to watch MTV.”
by Jiffy
Tuesday, September 25 2012, 6:57PM
“None of these tangoed idiots will embarrass the Welsh more than Maureen Rees from Driving School.”